Paris -3rd arrondissement-Centre Beaubourg-Introduction

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Introduction

The new Centre

Modern Art collection

Contemporary collection
Brancusi atelier Place Igor Stravinsky

The area of Beaubourg 18th century: butchers, needle makers, harness-makers, confectioners, stockjobbers, cutlers, curriers, bawlers, glassmakers but also moneychangers and usurers.

It was the area of all celebrations, follies and entertainment with its theatres, cabarets and “gilded belts”, ribalds and prostitutes. Under Napoleon II, the great Parisian urban works of baron Haussman squeezed the area between two large arteries and the quarter started to die out. The area stayed empty and desolated, just housing a large open-air parking (see picture).
1963: the minister of Culture, André Malraux, announces an ambitious project set up by le Corbusier. These plans are changed when Le Corbusier dies two years later.
In 1969 president Pompidou, who dreamt of giving Paris an art centre up to the ambitions of a glorious France, takes up the idea again. Remember 1971, when Georges Pompidou said, discovering the "maquette" (small scale model) of the future art centre: "This is gone make a hell of a noise and uproar!!". He was damn right. Proposing a steel and glass box having the looks of a petrol refinery to bring art to everybody! That's what I call audacity! Green and blue pipes, pillars, footbridges, portals, chimneys: with its giant Meccano allure, indeed the Centre Pompidou had its violent opponents and still has. “” I would like passionately that Paris would possess a centre for creation where plastic arts would go together with music, cinema, literature, audiovisual research, etc..This museum can only be of Modern Art since we have the Louvre. The creation would be modern and evoluating all the time. The library would attract thousands of people who would be directly confronted with all arts. “” (Pompidou, 1976)
But, despite some called it the "cultural supermarket" or "architectural King-Kong", its success crushed all previsions: 25, 000 visitors a day when they had counted on 7,000! (that's more than the Eiffel tower!!) and about 8 million a year. More than 160 millions since it opened.
And above all, Beaubourg took away the "fear" to access cultural sites. Without even looking at a painting or sculpture, there is so much to do in Beaubourg: learn to speak Mongol or Tamoul at the Public Library of Information, discover Armenian motion pictures at the Salle Garance, clips of any star in the videodisk documentation centre, or even get rid of your kids at the "children atelier". Poetic evenings, philosophic debates, thematic conferences, cycles, festivals, spectacles....There was always something going on in Beaubourg.
But let’s get back to history.
More than 600 architects worked day and night to get the contract. A strange Italo-British project won the contest: Piano and Rogers. The works were executed in a record tempo (1972-1977) and one day of February 1977 Parisians woke up, pinched their cheeks and didn’t believe what they saw! President Giscard d’Estaing just inaugurated the “Centre National d’art et Culture Georges Pompidou”. Huge discussions of pro and contra created a storm, a passionate debate about its inside –out architecture, but soon this highly controversial edifice grew to one of the most popular tourist  destinations in the city. Anyway, the fact was there, Pompidou, an immense, an inextricable metal heap, glass, pipes, whatever that makes us think of a steamship. But what is remarkable, is that all the different functions in the building have their specific colours: red for the people’s and goods transport, yellow for the electrical circuits, green for the water circulation and white for all architectural functions.
The building is made entirely of glass and surrounded by a white steel grid, five floors supported by steel beams set into external scaffolding made up of 84 steel girders, each one weighing 83 tons.
In 1997, after 18 loyal and good services, the centre Pompidou had to close for renovations. Major lifting and …(but that’s a secret), the asbestos initially put in the building was taken out).
Renzo Piano was charged with the renovation of the reception areas, spectacles, exhibitions at first level, terraces, service areas and circulation. After another contest, two young architects Jakob and Mac Farlane got the restaurant at the upper floor, decorated by Stark. The spaces dedicated to the permanent collections were redone by Jean-François Bodin.
Next essay, the real start of a visit to Centre Pompidou with first: the famous esplanade in front of the building. On January 1st, year 2000, at 11.00 hours the new CENTRE POMPIDOU opened its doors again, after closing for renovation works during 27 months.

Bibliography:

--Vie et histoire des arrondissements de Paris, ed.Hervas (1985-1988--Nouvelle Histoire de Paris, ed.Hachette--Le Pieton de Paris, by L.P.Fargue, ed.Gallimard -Paris, 2000 d'histoire, by J.Favier, ed.Fayard 199--Paris 19eme siecle, l'immeuble et la rue, by F.Loyer, ed.Hazan, 1994-Historique des rues de Paris, ‘Soc.Contact Communication, Paris), Beaubourg, l’esprit du lieu, by Philippe Bidaine (Ed.Scala , Paris)

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