Centre Pompidou, Paris France

Centre Pompidou is high-tech

architecture's inside-out landmark
Designed by Renzo Piano &Richard
Rogers(Museum/library/music centre/design Centre)
 Rogers + Piano's design for the Centre Pompidou was the winner of an
international competition for a large art gallery held by French president
George Pompidou in 1971.
 The Pompidou Centre was planned as a key connection in the renewal of the
historic heart of the capital.

Concept
 The concept was a truly flexible container in which all interior spaces could be
rearranged at will and exterior elements could be clipped on and off over the
life span of the building.
 Designed as an “evolving spatial diagram” 
 To maximize internal space, they turned the construction inside-out and
exposed a skeleton of brightly colored tubes for mechanical systems. The
ducts on the outside of the building are colour-coded:
 "The centre is like a huge spaceship made of glass, steel and coloured tubing
that landed unexpectedly in the heart of the Paris, and where it would very
quickly set deep roots," Piano said of the building.
  Described by Piano as a "big urban toy", Centre Pompidou contains six-
storeys of large column-free spaces.
 It is the largest museum for modern art in Europe

 A key component of Rogers and Piano's proposal was that the building would
only occupy half of the site with the other half of the site becoming a public
square.
 A further important element was the architect's intention to create a meeting
space not only for the art lover, but also for the local residents. The large
slightly sloped paved piazza in front of the building fulfils this role
introducing the high-tech structure of the building to its traditional
surroundings and Paris street life. 
 The design expresses the belief that buildings should be able to change to
allow people the freedom to adjust their environment as they need.

Experience
 Visitors travel from the ground level up a giant diagonal escalator, on the
facade facing the square, to external corridors and viewing platforms. These
 walkways and escalators are designed to create a dynamic ever-changing
facade.
 "The idea was that you had a public space, and you'd go up the facade of the
building in streets in the air with escalators floating across it, so the whole
thing became very dynamic," he continued. "People come to see people as
well as to see art; people come to meet people. So we wanted to practice that
as theatre."

Structure:
 The building's exposed superstructure,
 Alongside the exposed structure, Centre Pompidou's facades are covered with
colour-coded building services:
 These stand out from a minimal curtain wall backdrop made from steel and a
mix of glazed and solid metal panels that were designed to create the feeling
of a transparent building envelope.

Criticism
 However, the radical design of the building has not always been as popular,
and was initially met with hostility – described by French newspaper Le
Monde as "an architectural King Kong".