In 1830, architect Félix Duban, a former student and winner of the Grand Prix de Rome, began a transformation of the site by demolishing a few existing houses, moving back the convent's cloister on the right to produce a symmetrical courtyard, and designing the largest central building, the Palais des Études. Duban simply incorporated many of Lenoir's historical fragments, notably the portal of the 1548 Château d'Anet, and in the courtyard a facade from the Château de Gaillon, since removed and returned to its original site in 1977.