The Pompidou Center (Centre Pompidou in French) is one of the most impressive buildings of Paris. It was designed by architects Renzo Piano (from Italy) and Richard Rodgers (from the UK). Its purpose was to bring art and culture to the man in the street. Its 1977 factory style architecture fiercely differ with the surrounding houses of Paris’ oldest district near the Hotel de Ville. Whether one likes the Pompidou Center or doesn’t, but one will not forget it with its glass facade, its external stairs and the red, blue and green external pipeson the rear facade.



In fact, the Pompidou Center has been a great success with its easily available public library, its art exhibitions and the French National Museum of Modern Art. The Museum has large collections of paintings spanning the 20th century and including works by the most famous artists (Picasso, Braque, Max Ernst, Magritte, Chagall, Matisse, Delaunay, Kandinsky, Klee and many others).

The construction forms a huge transparent box whose uncovered frame of tubular steel columns carries trusses spanning the width of the building. External mechanical systems - elevators painted red; escalators in clear plastic tunnels; and giant tubes for air (painted blue), water (green), and electricity (yellow) all are noticeably placed outside the main columns.

Considerable controversy arose over the assertive industrial style of the Pompidou Center, whose bold “exo-skeletal" architecture contrasts violently with surrounding houses in the heart of an old section of Paris near the Hôtel de Ville. However not withstanding the controversy the Center has been hugely successful, with its many art exhibitions and the National Museum of Modern Art, attracting more than 160 million people since its inauguration.

The Beaubourg Plaza in front of the Centre remains a very lively area - its jugglers, mimes and humorists from all over Europe constantly attract a crowd. This Paris tradition, which survives from the Middle Ages, can also be spotted in other areas like Saint-Germain-des-Près and the Place de la Contrescarpe (near the Panthéon). The Beaubourg area is especially lively at night, offering visitors plenty of bars and restaurants.

The Centre has one of the world’s most important public collections of twentieth-century art, architecture, and design. The third and fourth floor is dedicated to this section. The exhibitions have become landmark events for a public that is eager to meet all the art forms of its times and follow their development.

The Centre National D'Art et De Culture Georges Pompidou is dedicated to the diffusion of today’s creation, in all its forms. . The Centre Pompidou boasts one of the largest museums in the world, a large public library, theatres, cinemas and a musical research institute all in the same complex. Its multi-disciplinary vocation is clearly revealed in the prestigious exhibits and events it houses.

The cultural and artistic center named after Georges Pompidou, has sparked many a lively debate about its daring and strange architecture. The strange cultural crossroads was accepted only slowly and with great difficulty into the rhythm of daily life in the area. But successful it is.