Pompidou Centre

Pompidou Centre (in full, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou). Cultural centre in Paris named after Georges Pompidou (1911–74), who was President of France from 1967 to 1974. In 1969 he declared: ‘I passionately wish that Paris could have a cultural centre that would be both a museum and a centre for creativity—a place where the plastic arts, music, cinema, literature, audiovisual research, etc. would find a common ground.’ The site chosen for this centre was the Plateau Beaubourg, a once thriving area near the centre of Paris that had degenerated into a slum and become derelict between the two world wars (it has given the Pompidou Centre its colloquial name ‘Beaubourg Centre', or simply ‘Beaubourg'). An international competition for the building produced 681 submissions, including bizarre ideas such as a giant egg and an enormous hand extended towards the sky, each finger being intended to house a separate department. The winning design—chosen by an international jury—was submitted by an Italian and a British architect working in partnership: Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers (later Lord Rogers). Their huge building was constructed in 1971–7 (it was inaugurated in 1977 with a large exhibition of the work of Marcel Duchamp) and it soon became one of the most famous sights of the city and one of the busiest art centres in the world. It is a leading example of High Tech architecture, with the building's service systems fully exposed on the exterior; they are brightly and systematically coloured—yellow for the electrical system, blue for the air-conditioning ducts, and so on. It has been described as looking like a ‘crazy oil refinery', and as architecture it has attracted extremes of praise and censure. The large plaza in front of the building is conceived as part of the Centre and is the main forum for the city's street performers. Also outside the building is the ebullient Beaubourg Fountain (1980) by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle.

The Pompidou Centre, of which Pontus Hulten was the first director, is divided into various departments, including a library, an industrial design centre, and an institute for the development and promotion of avant-garde music. The largest of the departments and the main reason for the Centre's popularity is the national collection of modern art—the Musée National d'Art Moderne—which was formerly housed in the Palais de Tokyo, adjacent to the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. It was opened there in 1947, but its origins are much older, for it is the heir to the Musée du Luxembourg, opened in 1818 as a showcase for the work of living artists. The Musée National d'Art Moderne has one of the world's greatest collections of modern art, exceeded in scope and quality probably only by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. All the major movements are represented. Among the highlights is the studio of Constantin Brancusi, which he left to the state and which has been reconstructed at the Centre.