The Centre Pompidou – Turning Things Inside – Out

“Yesterday, I believe I never would have done what I did today”

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Sites/Topics covered in this post:  

• Georges Pompidou Center

Go-Date: Day 137, Saturday, June 8

Lesson Learned: There are electric scooters everywhere in Paris. Though everyone gripes about them, I think they are going to be universal for city travel in the future. If you need to get a couple of miles across the center of town, there is no more economical way to make the trip than one of these scooters. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/11/europe/electric-scooter-killed-paris-scli-intl/index.html

Do they need to be regulated? Sure. Do the riders need to follow common courtesy and safety rules? Absolutely. Do we need to resist the proliferation of these things? I don’t think so. Hell, I’m going to try one out when we get back to DC. I’d do it here, but Paris traffic in a city I don’t know well (and its got a lot of hills, too) I think that would be less than wise. Its two miles from our house to the metro station in Alexandria. I can’t think of an easier way to do it than on one of these scooters.

A Building as Modern & Unique as the Art on Display

The Centre Pompidou, is an inside-out modern building in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil, and the Marais (all great neighborhoods to pick an apartment or hotel to stay while in Paris). It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, along with Gianfranco Franchini.

It houses the Bibliothèque publique d’information (Public Information Library), a huge public library; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe; and the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM,) a center for music and acoustic research. It is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building, and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

In 1969, President Pompidou decided that the vacant site of the Plateau Beaubourg should be used for the construction of a multidisciplinary cultural center of an entirely new type. Now, I found this rather strange. Can you imagine Donald Trump deciding that an old section of the Navy Yard in SE DC should be used for a new museum that addressed issues not displayed in any of the Smithsonian museums? Nah, he’d just propose a new Trump Hotel financed by Russia, Saudi Arabia and US taxpayers with a golf course that common folk couldn’t afford to pay the green fees.

The decision gave new impetus to a number of different projects that would now be united in the new center, with the establishment of a new public reading library, the musée national d’art moderne (MNAM), and the creation of a center for new music (the IRCAM) inspired by the ideas of French composer Pierre Boulez. In addition to this, the new center would take over the activities of the centre d’art contemporain in the rue Berryer.

 

To design the new facility, an architectural competition was announced to be open to architects from around the world. The competition attracted 681 competitors from 49 different countries.

The international jury chaired by the architect and engineer Jean Prouvé chose a design submitted by a team of three, British architect Richard Rogers and the two Italians Renzo Piano and Gianfranco Franchini, all relatively unknown. Piano and Rogers alone oversaw the management of the project; the two then went on to make separate careers, both later winning the Pritzker Prize, the highest award in the architectural world.

Today considered an emblematic 20th-century building, has become dear to the hearts of the people of Paris and a favorite site for tourists from around the world, the new arts center was at first compared by its detractors to an oil refinery. The concept was that the center would have the inside infrastructure on the outside, which is normally inside, to free up additional space for people and art on the inside. Piano and Rogers’ building continued to be a subject of polemic right through the 1970s, before becoming the icon and exemplar that it is today.

The Centre Pompidou was inaugurated on 31 January 1977. From the moment it opened to the public on 2 February 1977, it met with immense success, rapidly becoming one of the most popular cultural venues in the world and one of the most visited monuments in France.

The late 1970’s and the 1980’s saw the Centre Pompidou stage highly influential exhibitions that made major contributions to the history of 20th-century art. Under the leadership of its directors Pontus Hulten and Dominique Bozo (now I’m sure that drew some snide remarks on his name), the collection of art works in the musée national d’art moderne grew considerably and became a world leader in the field of modern and contemporary art.

In 1992 the creation of a department of cultural development, which is responsible for a program of live performance, film screenings, lectures, symposia and debates. The fusion of the modern art museum and the center for industrial design laid the foundations for an architecture and design collection that in twenty years has become one of the most impressive in the world.

After twenty years of activity and having welcomed over 150 million visitors, under president Jean-Jacques Aillagon the Centre Pompidou underwent renovation work that lasted from October 1997 to December 1999. The government provided funding to expand gallery space for the display of the permanent collection and improve facilities for live performance.  

The Centre Pompidou reopened on 1 January 2000, again meeting with great success, being visited by 16,000 people a day that year. At present, the Centre Pompidou welcomes some 3.5 to 3.8 million visitors per year.

When you stumble upon the center, you are rather startled. I might agree with the oil refinery comparison, but I think it suits the art on display completely. It has wide, spacious display areas, a broad sloped courtyard (which reminds of the Il Campo in Siena, Italy) around the entrance, fabulous visibility while you ride the escalators up to the top with a magnificent view of Paris, high, high ceilings, and spaces that really do  allow the art to make a statement to the viewers.

The Modern in Fort Worth is a fabulous museum, and I enjoyed the Pompidou as much or more. The Modern Museum in DC is wonderful as well. These museums are visually interesting, yet don’t detract from the art they contain. This is something I can’t say for the Picasso Museum.

We enjoyed the art here so much we visited the center twice. You really do need to see it once and then re-evaluate what you’ve seen a second time. Its also one of the greatest spots in Paris to people watch as well. It has plenty of cafés around the perimeter, other sights in the area, and has a young vibe that kind of energizes you. Well, until it wears you out and you need to go back to your apartment and take a nap. We really enjoyed the Pompidou Center and highly recommend it make your “Must See” list while you are in Paris.