Centre Pompidou

© Sortir à Paris

Centre Pompidou stands as a monument to modern art and innovation. Opened in 1977, it was designed by the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, whose revolutionary approach featured an "inside-out" building design with exposed structural elements and vibrant exterior pipes.

Did you know?

The colors on the exterior of the Centre Pompidou each represent a different function. The blue pipes are for air conditioning, the yellow ones handle electricity, the green pipes manage water, and the red indicate areas for people.

The center is named after Georges Pompidou, the former French president who envisioned a cultural institution that would break traditional boundaries. It houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne, the largest modern art museum in Europe, boasting an extensive collection of 20th and 21st-century artworks from renowned artists like Picasso, Duchamp, and Kandinsky.

Centre Pompidou serves as a dynamic space for contemporary art, design, music, and cinema, fostering creativity and innovation. The building itself is a cultural icon, symbolizing the fusion of architecture and urbanism and challenging conventional aesthetics.

© Télérama

Did you know?

The Centre Pompidou has hosted some art exhibitions related to sports, exploring the intersection of sports, art, and culture. For example, earlier this year, visitors could attend the “Les Règles du Sport” exhibition (“The Rules of Sport”). The showcased artists explored how rules in sporting disciplines have evolved from ancient Greece to today's ultra-modern and globalized world. 

The area around Centre Pompidou is popular with street performers, often seen practicing calisthenics, parkour, dance and skateboarding.