Centre Pompidou ; Musée National d’Art Moderne

In the middle of classic Paris, where it seems like the whole city is an art museum, you’ll find a futuristic building: the Pompidou Center, a redevelopment project by former President Georges Pompidou.

“We already have the Louvre for old art, so we need a new museum for contemporary art, and the library that will be built inside will be a place of intellect where artistic inspiration is born.”
– Georges Pompidou-.

Overview :

President Georges Pompidou was a literature student who taught high school literature at the École Normale Supérieure before taking office, and he was an art lover with a keen appreciation for contemporary art. Soon after he was elected, he announced plans to redevelop the Beaubourg area, including the construction of the Pompidou Center, which was part of a plan to eradicate the slums of central Paris and prevent the city from losing the title of City of the Arts to London and New York.

Pompidou, who was so passionate about the center’s creation from the start, sadly did not live to see its completion, dying suddenly on April 2, 1974, from a rare disease called macroglobulinemia. As a tribute to his passion, the museum was named the Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, or simply the Pompidou Center. Locals call it “Beaubourg” after the surrounding neighborhood in the 4th arrondissement of Paris.

History :

In 1969, President Georges Pompidou initiated the creation of the Pompidou Center to transform the then-vacant Plateau Beaubourg into a cultural center with a museum of modern and contemporary art and a public library.
On July 15, 1971, a competition was held to design the Pompidou Center, and out of 681 submissions from 49 countries, the Italian architect Renzo Piano, then a newcomer to the international scene, and the British architect Richard Rogers, along with the structural engineer Peter Rice (1935-1992), teamed up to design the building, which was completed in 1977.

The most striking of their innovations is that the interior structure is open to the outside; all the functional equipment such as wiring, heating, cooling, and plumbing are outside the building. The idea is to put the building’s supporting cast on stage and then color them according to their functions to create a unique beauty. The coldness of the massive 15,000-ton steel trusses and 11,000 square meters of glass was expressed in primary colors: the structure and largest ventilation components were painted white, the air moving parts such as heating units and fans were painted blue, the drainage pipes were painted green, the electrical system was painted yellow, the staircase and elevator structure was painted silver-gray, and the escalators, motor rooms, and shafts, or the paths that allow movement throughout the building, were painted red. In addition, the interior walls can be pushed to one side or removed, allowing the space to be freely repurposed. The building’s operation and function, designed to maximize interior space by keeping what belongs inside out, is in line with the political ideology of Georges Pompidou, who advocated a policy of pragmatism at the time.

The 103,305-square-meter building houses a public library, the Musée National d’Art Moderne, and the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique, Musique.

Featured Collections :

Founded in 1818, the Musée National d’Art Moderne de Luxembourg has a mission to house the works of living French artists purchased by the French government alongside the collection of the Luxembourg Museum. Housed in a building with an industrial aesthetic, it houses the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, with more than 100,000 works dating from 1905 to today. It is also one of the largest collections in the world.
Highlights include Marcel Duchamp’s “Fontaine” and Pablo Picasso’s “La Muse”, Henri Matisse’s “La Blouse roumaine”, Wassily Kandinsky’s “Mit dem schwarzen Bogen”, Piet Mondrian’s “New York City I”, Fernand Lèger’s “Les Loisirs-Hommage à Louis David” and Marc Chagall’s “Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel “. The museum also has a collection of more than 120,000 works, including Andy Warhol’s Pop Art and Jackson Pollock’s “The Moonwoman Cuts the Circle”.

Visiting Detail :

Open : Wed-Mon 11:00-21:00

Closed : Tuesday, May 1

Average length of stay : 3 hours or more

Location : Place Georges-Pompidou 75004 Paris

Founded : 1977

Annual attendance : Approximately 120,000 and more.

Official Website : https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/

Tip

“Pompidou Center to close for 5 years after 2024”, where will the artworks go?

The Pompidou Center, one of France’s most famous contemporary art museums, will be closed for five years, until 2030.
The renovation is due to safety concerns raised by the government as the museum has not been maintained since its opening in 1977.
The renovation was originally scheduled to begin in 23, but was pushed back to the second half of this year due to the increase in visitors during the Paris Olympics in 24.
(The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, will take place from July 26 to August 11).
From October 24, the works in the Pompidou Center will be moved to the Pompidou Branch, so it is recommended to visit before it closes.