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'Centre Georges Pompidou' (constructed 1971–1977 and known as the 'Pompidou Centre' in English) is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the IVe arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles and the Marais.
It houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information, a vast public library, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as 'Beaubourg'. It is named after Georges Pompidou, who was president of France from 1969 to 1974, and was opened on January 31, 1977. The building was designed by the architects Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Sue Rogers and engineers Peter Rice and Edmund Happold, whose design was not very popular at first. However, under the guidance of its first director, Pontus Hultén, it quickly became a noted attraction in Paris.

Contents

Architecture

Musée National d'Art Moderne

Bibliothèque publique d'information

Stravinsky Fountain

Place Georges Pompidou

Public transport

Miscellaneous

External links

Architecture

The Centre was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, the British architect couple Richard Rogers and Sue Rogers, and the British structual engineer Edmund Happold and Irish structural engineer Peter Rice. The project was awarded to this team of relative unknowns in a design competition, whose results were announced in 1971. Reporting on Rogers' winning the Pritzker Prize in 2007, the New York Times noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down" and that "Mr. Rogers earned a reputation as a high-tech iconoclast with the completion of the 1977 Pompidou Center, with its exposed skeleton of brightly colored tubes for mechanical systems. The Pompidou 'revolutionized museums,' the Pritzker jury said, 'transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city. The characteristic piping is color-coded according to the contents: yellow for electricity, red for heating, blue for air, and green for water.'"[1]

Musée National d'Art Moderne

The 'Musée National d'Art Moderne' is the French national modern art museum located on the fourth and fifth floors of the Centre. Organisationally, it is associated with IRCAM, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, which is located nearby.
The museum has a major international collection of modern art by artists such as Kandinsky, Matisse, Miró, Picasso, etc. Some of the art movements represented are Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. It has 50,000 works of art (including painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography), of which 1,500 to 2,000 are on public display.
Also located here is the Centre of Industrial Design. 20th century architecture and design are covered. The museum has a rolling program of important temporary exhibitions.

Bibliothèque publique d'information

The first three floors of the Centre house a library and the Bibliothèque publique d'information.

Stravinsky Fountain

The nearby Stravinsky Fountain (also called the ''Fontaine des automates''), features works by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle.
Video footage of the fountain appeared frequently throughout the French language telecourse, French in Action.

Place Georges Pompidou

The Place Georges Pompidou in front of the museum is noted for the presence of street performers, such as mimes and jugglers.

Public transport

★ Nearby Métro stations: Rambuteau, Les Halles

★ RER Châtelet - Les Halles

Miscellaneous

★ In 1978, the Greek artist Vangelis created an album named Beaubourg (album), that is supposed to be a musical representation of the Centre Pompidou, and to reflect life in the Beaubourg area of Paris, where Vangelis lived in the early '70s.

★ The exterior escalators at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, California, USA, bear a striking resemblance to the escalators at the Centre Pompidou.

★ The Centre Pompidou was equipped by its architect with many recent innovations, like faucets controlled by photocells that mix hot and cold water to a temperature determined by the position of the user's hands, much as a theremin regulates its pitch and volume. These faucets showed up in the U.S. years later, mostly in public buildings.

★ The Musée National d'Art Moderne hosts a variety of shows. In 1987, an American writer was perusing his surprisingly museum costly catalogue—the dollar was weak that week—and looked for a place to sit. He found a comfortable leather chair on a 10 cm. roped platform, stepped upon the platform, and sat on the chair, then read his catalog. One show featured the works of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, including the original Barcelona Chair he was sitting on. This explained the platform and caused him to wonder why he had not been accosted by museum guards for touching a key exhibit. He then quietly found another place to read.

External links

★ Centre Pompidou official website

★ Video about the Centre Pompidou

★ Bibliothèque publique d'information website

★ Paris Pages — Musée National d'Art Moderne

★ Photographs of the Pompidou Centre

★ Photos of the Pompidou Centre, Paris

★ Centre Pompidou Visiting Information

★ Photographs of Beaubourg and its district