Paris - Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture

(Local Name: Centre Pompidou / Beaubourg) Between the Halles district and the Marais in Paris is the Centre Pompidou (Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou), which since it was opened in 1977 had become one of Paris's major attractions, with over seven million visitors a year. This house of culture with the character of a workshop covers a wide range of activities. It was designed as a center for creative work and the exchange of information, presenting art, architecture, design, literature and music in a setting in which they could interact and supplement one another. Visitors have the choice between periodic special exhibitions, the National Museum of Modern Art (Musée National d'Art Moderne, MNAM), the Center of Industrial Design (Centre de Création Industrielle, CCI), an institute of contemporary music (IRCAM), a library (Bibliothèque Publique d'Information, BPI), a theater and a sightseeing tour of the Center itself. On its six floors there are concerts, modern operas and experimental ballets, and outside, on the forecourt, there is a lively mix of entertainers, buskers and fire-eaters. An architectural competition for the building of the Centre Pompidou which attracted almost 700 entries from 50 different countries was won by a young architectural team, the British architect Richard Rogers and the Italian Renzo Piano, who were also responsible for the extension of IRCAM. Under their direction there took shape, over a period of five years and at a cost of almost a billion francs, a building which immediately sparked off a lively controversy. Its opponents see it as a "monstrosity", a "Utopian oil refinery"; its supporters see in the Centre Beaubourg (Beaubourg is the name of the district) a contribution towards making Paris on the threshold of the 21st century what it was from the end of the 19th century to the Second World War, the art capital of the world.

This structure of steel and glass, 166m/545ft long, 60m/197ft wide and 42m/138ft high, does indeed resemble a refinery. All the services (electricity, etc.) are in brightly colored ducts on the outside of the east front, and on the other side are lifts and a "glass caterpillar" containing escalators. In one respect, however, the Centre Beaubourg can be compared with a very different Paris monument, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. With its complex structure fully exposed to view, it shares with Notre-Dame a fundamental architectural principle: all the load-bearing elements of the structure are on the outside of the building, and as a result the internal space (150m/490ft by 50m/165ft) on the ground floor and five upper floors is free of all bearing elements and can thus be arranged in any way desired - a great advantage for temporary exhibitions.

The main objective of the Centre Beaubourg was not to assemble documentation and display museum collections but to foster creativity and artistic production. Although less emphasis is now laid on the original idea of a close relationship between conservators, artists and the public and the artists now tend to exhibit their works in the center rather than create them there, while the public go rather to see than to participate, the Centre Pompidou still tries to remain true to the basic idea of a contemporary cultural center. It is in line with the government's new cultural policy, too, that the French regions are represented in exhibitions and events in the Centre and that exhibitions organized by the Centre are shown in provincial museums.

In 1991, in order to solve serious functional problems which had emerged in recent years and to improve coordination between different departments of the Centre the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, invited the new director of the Centre, Dominique Bozo (who died in 1993) to reorganize the Centre. Thereupon MNAM and CCI were combined in a single department and a new department for research and the teaching of art was established. Also planned are changes in the use of space and the restoration of Brancusi's studio, which is being undertaken by the original architects, Rogers and Piano.