Centre Pompidou Masterplan

www.rsh-p.com / 2007

Place/Date
Paris, France 1971 - 1977
Client
Ministre des Affaires Culturelles,
Ministre de lEducation Nationale
Cost
58 million
Gross Internal Area
100,000 m

Architect
Piano + Rogers
Structural Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners
Services Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners
Cost Consultant
Ove Arup & Partners

In 1971 Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano,

in collaboration with Ove Arup & Partners,
won the international competition, for which
there were 681 entries, for an information,
entertainment and cultural centre. The
building was designed and built in six years,
the main steel structure being erected in six
months. Today, the vast building, located
in the centre of historic Paris, houses a
museum of modern art, reference library,
industrial design centre, temporary exhibition
space, childrens library and art centre,
audio-visual research centre (IRCAM) and
restaurants.
At the time of the competition, there were
no sizeable open spaces in this central area
of the city, so the importance of creating
public space was key to this project: half of
the Beaubourg site was dedicated to a vast
piazza which has since become the most
intensively used public space in Paris. Thus,
the competition response created a centre
not only for the specialist but also for the
tourist and the local resident: a dynamic
meeting place where activities could overlap
in flexible, well-serviced spaces, a university
of the street reflecting the constantly
changing needs of users. The greater
public involvement, the greater the success
of the building. The large, paved, sloping
piazza is host to street theatre and music,
games, meetings, parades and temporary
exhibitions. This has had a significant
regenerative effect on the surrounding
neighborhood. To the east, the Centre abuts
the street, reinforcing the existing urban
pattern. Pompidou proves that modernity
and tradition can profitably interact and
enhance historic cities. Cities of the future

will no longer be zoned as today in isolated

one-activity ghettos, but will resemble the
more richly layered cities of the past. Living,
work, shopping, learning and leisure will
overlap and be housed in continuous, varied
and changing structures
(Richard Rogers).
Beaubourg was a key connection in the
renewal of the historic heart of the capital
and made an impact on Paris which
reverberates to this day.
A colossal 100,000m, this public building
is designed to be a flexible container and
dynamic communications machine and is
constructed from pre-fabricated parts. Host
to six levels of vast column-free interiors,
the building achieves uninterrupted floor
space by limiting all vertical structures and
servicing to the exterior; even escalators
and lifts are clipped to the faade. The
glazed escalators which snake up the full
height of the building not only celebrate the
drama of movement but provide panoramic
views of the piazza, its environs and all of
Paris. The internal spaces are designed to
be highly adaptable so that their character
and use can change freely within the life
of the centre; there is no obvious hierarchy
which separates art and learning from more
everyday activities. With its external colourcoded servicing and structure, the building
reveals its internal mechanism to all those
who look up at it. It is a flexible, functional,
transparent, inside-out looking building.
The Centre Pompidou has an average
attendance of approximately seven million
people per year.

Centre Pompidou Masterplan

Awards
International Union of Architects August
Perret Prize for most outstanding
international work
19751978

Beaubourg is a flexible
container and a dynamic
communications machine.
It is a vibrant meeting place
for all people of all ages, all
creeds, for young and old.