Ponder the Pompidou Centre

Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou or simply Centre Pompidou was the brainchild of then President Georges Pompidou who wanted to establish a museum devoted to modern art. The architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, assisted by G. Franchini came up with 'an original construction where the interior space is totally usable and adaptable since the functional elements - the pipes' - have all been banished to the exterior'. In the beginning many Parisians and foreign visitors viewed this building as a factory but its colourful inside-out structure has become an icon of 20th century architecture.

The building opened to the public in 1977, and houses a modern art museum, a library, performance and conference rooms, an industrial design centre and an institute for research and development in contemporary music. Of course there is a great bookshop as well where we did buy a beautiful book on Frida Kahlo*.

'The Centre Pompidou is dedicated to all forms of visual culture. It owns the biggest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, where fine art rubs shoulders with design, architecture, photography and new media'. We visited the centre on the day it closed late. It was certainly 'busy' with visitors, and the artists and artistes/performers doing their thing, some of which I did not really understand. C'est la vie!

* Frida Kahlo/ Andrea Kettenmann Ex Libris CNB 2029
Ref: Paris Versailles. Editions A. Leconte, 2013. Ex Libris CNB 2026