Beaubourg

Beaubourg , popular name for the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture , museum in Paris, France; the popular name is derived from the district in which it is located. Proposed by French president Georges Pompidou in 1969, the center was designed by architects Renzo Piano of Italy and Richard Rogers of England along with the Danish engineering firm of Ove Arup and was opened in 1977. Its industrial style, with bold architectural elements such as its steel superstructure, clear plastic escalator tunnels, brightly colored elevators, and color-coded utility pipes and ducts exposed on the outside of the building, generated furious controversy during its construction and for some years thereafter. Like the Eiffel Tower , which precipitated a critical storm in its own time, the Beaubourg has become a tourist attraction and a popular Parisian landmark. Now commanding much of the authority of a 20th-century Louvre , the six-story building houses a major museum of modern and contemporary art, a public library, a cinema and performance halls, and music and industrial design centers. By the early 1990s rust and peeling paint on the building's exterior made restoration necessary. Begun in 1997 and completed in 1999 (the museum reopened in 2000), the renovation included increased space, an updated library, basement theaters, a restaurant, and other expanded facilities.

Bibliography: See N. Silver, The Making of Beaubourg (1994).

Pompidou Centre (in full, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou). Cultural centre in Paris named after Georges Pompidou (1911–74), the President of France from 1967 to 1974. In 1969 he expressed a ‘passionate wish’ for ‘a place where the plastic arts, music, cinema, literature, audio-visual research, etc. would find a common ground’. The site chosen for the Centre was the Plateau Beaubourg (hence its colloquial name ‘Beaubourg Centre’), a once thriving area near the centre of Paris that had become derelict between the world wars. An international competition for the building produced almost 700 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 was submitted by the Italian-British team of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers (later Lord Rogers). Their huge building was constructed in 1971–7 and soon became one of the most famous sights of the city. A leading example of ‘high-tech’ architecture, it has been described as looking like a ‘crazy oil refinery’ and 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 Centre 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. 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. Its collection of modern art is exceeded in scope and quality probably only by that of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.