“I can’t think
without writing.”
Jean Piaget in his office, c. 1972
Founded in 1974, the mission of the Jean Piaget Archives is to preserve and disseminate all the documents related to the work and figure of Jean Piaget and the School of Geneva. It also preserves the research documents of the School of Geneva, as well as the personal archives of Jean Piaget.
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The Jean Piaget Archives Foundation
The Fondation Jean Piaget Archives is a private institution created in 1974 by Bärbel Inhelder and Olivier Reverdin, professors at the University of Geneva. The creation of the Foundation fulfils a need that results from the qualitative and quantitative dimension of Jean Piaget’s work. The Foundation promotes Piagetian thematics in an interdisciplinary perspective.
Olivier Reverdin, photo: Erling Mandelmann. Bärbel Inhelder, photo: Alain Perruchoud.
Jean Piaget at the AJP. Photo: B. P. Mayor
The Piaget Archives
The Foundation is responsible for a documentation centre, the Jean Piaget Archives, whose aim is to create as complete collection of the published and unpublished works of the great psychologist and father of genetic epistemology, as well as the works resulting from the research of the Geneva School of Psychology, in order to preserve them and make them available to researchers from all over the world.
The Jean Piaget Archives are directed by Edouard Gentaz, Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Geneva. He is surrounded by a team composed by two psychologists, Christelle Aymoz and Marc Ratcliff, a librarian-documentalist, Katalin Haymoz and a secretary, Sandrine Amstutz.
The AJP funds
The Jean Piaget Archives have two main collections: the AJP Fund and the Piaget Family Donation Fund (DFP). The first is the one that has been built up since the creation of the Jean Piaget Archives and includes Jean Piaget’s writings (books, articles, lectures including translations), secondary literature, manuscripts, research protocols, photographs, sound recordings, films and different teaching materials.
The DFP collection is the result of a donation agreement signed in 2012 by the Piaget family, who transferred to the AJPs all the archival documents that were still in Jean Piaget’s house, in Pinchat. This heritage is unique, both in terms of its quantitative importance (more than 60,000 items) and its scientific interest (manuscripts, correspondence, objects, etc.).
Photos Denis Ponté & Roger Chappellu, Matteo Borri
