Centre Pompidou
Two young architects won the competition for an arts centre with one idea: put everything that is usually hidden on the outside. The steel frame, the pipes and the escalator are on the exterior, colour-coded by function – blue for air, green for water, yellow for electricity. Inside, the floors are left completely open.
In the late 1960s the French president Georges Pompidou initiated a large cultural centre on the Plateau Beaubourg, a car park in central Paris. It was to house a museum of modern art, a public library and a centre for industrial design, as well as an institute for music research. An international competition was held in 1971, and it was won by the young architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, together with Gianfranco Franchini and engineers from Ove Arup, among them Peter Rice. Construction lasted from 1972 to 1977, and the centre was inaugurated in January 1977, after Pompidou’s death. The structure is of steel, and the large cast brackets that carry the beams, known as gerberettes, were made in Germany.
The building is a large box with floors entirely free of columns, because the load-bearing frame, stairs, lifts and technical systems have been moved out to the façades. On the side facing the square the escalator runs diagonally up the façade in a glass tube, giving visitors an ever wider view over Paris. At the back, facing the street, are the pipes for ventilation, water and electricity, colour-coded by function: blue for air, green for water, yellow for electricity and red for circulation, such as lifts and escalators. In front of the building is a sloping square that descends towards the entrance and is used by street performers. Next to it lies the Stravinsky Fountain with sculptures by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle.
The Centre Pompidou was controversial when it was built, and many Parisians called it an oil refinery. But it immediately became very popular and received more visitors than expected, which took a heavy toll on the building. It was renovated around 1997–2000 and closed in 2025 for a new, extensive renovation. The building marked the starting point of so-called high-tech architecture, and Piano and Rogers both became world-famous. There is a clear link to Sweden: the museum’s first director was Pontus Hultén, who had previously built up the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and who brought with him the idea of the museum as a lively and open meeting place. His exhibitions in Paris on the great art capitals attracted attention all over the world.