National center of art and Georges-Pompidou culture

The National center of art and culture Georges-Pompidou , more commonly called Center Georges-Pompidou , Center Pompidou or Center Beaubourg , is a poly-cultural establishment located in the Beaubourg district, the 4 {{E}} district of Paris, between the district of the Halles and the Marais.

The Center, which accommodates the public since 1977, was born from the will of the President of the Republic Georges Pompidou to create in the middle of Paris an original cultural institution entirely dedicated to modern and contemporary creation where the Visual arts would be neighborly with the books, the design, the music, the cinema.

Today, the Center Pompidou accommodates 5,3 million visitors per annum, which makes of it the third institution most visited in France after the Musée of Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. It off preserves one of the two more important collections of modern art and contemporary at the world with that of the Museum Modern Art of New York, shelters important galleries of temporary exhibitions, theaters and of cinema, and the first library of public reading in Europe. During 2009, the town of Metz will accommodate a decentralized antenna of the Center, the Center Pompidou - Metz

History

In the spirit of the president Georges Pompidou, the establishment in the center of Paris of cultural equipment of a new type, dedicated to all the forms of contemporary creation, was located at the crossroads of concerns:

  • will to stop the decline of Paris on the artistic scene and to preserve to him its statute of major place of the contemporary art on a world level, disputed more and more by New York;

  • symmetrically, will to open French creation on the world and to support, by the interdisciplinarity, the expression of new artistic forms;
  • the conviction that the most contemporary art can join again with the largest audience in the condition which public power fully plays its role of mediation;
  • the desire to create in Paris a large monument representative of the architecture of the second half of the 20th century, whose achievements in the capital had, hitherto, be not very important or not very notable.

This ambition was made, particularly at the time, to cause sharp debates, which it is about the current opposition between mass culture and élitiste culture, of the problems of cultural decentralization - the Center be would large additional Parisian equipment or, according to the formula of Michel Guy, would manage he to be essential like “the power station of decentralization”? - and of the relationship between being able and creation - many artists then feared the attempts of recovery or instrumentalisation, as showed it, in 1972, the polemic created by the exposure of the Large palace “72-72”.

Origins of the project

Among the direct sources of the project, one finds two projects distinct which had been conceived and had walked on in parallel during the years 1960:

  • the project of a museum of the 20th century that André Malraux had planned to build and of which it wished to entrust the design to the architect Le Corbusier: this project aimed at answering the state of abandonment of the National museum of modern art, which was then installed with the Palais of Tokyo. Having very few means, this museum, whose collections had passed beside major artists of the 20th century, accommodated only one very limited public (165.000 visitors only in 1971). The 4th Plan had thus envisaged the construction of a new museum of Modern art and allocated a credit of 8 franc million for the purchase of the ground and the studies preparatory. A study had been entrusted by max Querrien, director of Architecture, with Maurice Besset, associate Jean Cassou, conservative as a chief of the national museum of Modern art and personal friend of Le Corbusier. This one had given in 1964 a Avant-projet of program for the museum of the 20th century .

  • the project of a large library of public reading in the center of Paris, intended to unchoke the National library had taken consistency with the decision to transfer the central Markets to Rungis, in 1963 - 1965: the general administrator of the National library, Etienne Dennery, had suggested benefitting from the site released to establish this equipment. An inter-ministerial committee for the public reading was created in 1966 under the impulse of Georges Pompidou, who attached a great importance to this stake, and the new library was envisaged in the 5th Plan. It was to offer 1  300 places, 1  000  000 of volumes and 2  000 periodicals on 11  000 m ², and being open to all. The program was approved by the Minister for State education, Alain Peyrefitte, the December 11th 1967.

The initial decision of Georges Pompidou

In 1969, Georges Pompidou, become President of the Republic, decided to build a new museum of Modern art and chooses the Beaubourg plate like the only site available. But, this ground being also the only likely one to accommodate the large public library, it was decided, in February 1970, to join together the two projects within the same cultural equipment. In the design of president Pompidou, the library was to attract visitors who could then discover the other activities suggested. “I would like passionately, explained it, that Paris has an arts center as one sought to create some in the United States with a success up to now unequal, which is at the same time a museum and a center of creation, where the visual arts would be neighborly with the music, the cinema, the books, audio-visual research, etc the museum can be only of modern art, since we have Louvre. Creation, obviously, would be modern and evolve/move unceasingly. The library would attract thousands of readers who at the same time would be put in contact with arts. ”

The decision to build “a monumental unit devoted to the contemporary art on the site of the Beaubourg plate” in Paris was made officially by the President of the Republic Georges Pompidou at the time of a cautious advice held the December 11th 1969, on the basis of a document programming science which had been compiled by Sebastien Loste, then operations manager with the Presidency of the Republic. The Council of Paris gave his agreement the December 23rd.

In the beginning, the Center was to include/understand a museum of Modern art, a public library and the Center of industrial creation (CCI) created by François Mathey, conservative as a chief of the museum of decorative Arts. But, in 1971, under the direct impulse of Georges Pompidou, it was decided to also include there a center of musical creation entrusted to Pierre Boulez, which agreed to return to France, where it had ceased all its activities since 1966, and which was to become the IRCAM (Research institute and acoustic coordination/music).

From the start, the project was extremely badly accommodated by the administration. It indeed joined together concerning equipment ministry for the cultural Affairs (the museum), another depending at the time of the minister of education main road (the library), and a third (the IRCAM), which was affirmed like independent, even rival, of the direction of the music, the lyric art and the dance whose director named by André max, the type-setter Marcel Landowski, was in open war with Pierre Boulez. In the spirit of its originators, the Center wanted to be an answer to a certain number of bankruptcies of the French cultural policy: incapacity to create a museum of modern art worthy of this name, delay of the public reading by report/ratio in particular in Northern Europe, the scorn in which the authorities had held the modern music. The shortly after May 1968, the foundation of the Center Pompidou thus seemed a new challenge launched to the Académisme of the cultural institutions of State.

Design and the realization of the Center

The August 26th 1970, Robert Bordaz, To advise State, was named in the Council of Ministers “delegated for the realization of the Center of the Beaubourg plate”. It constituted a team of ten people, charged to prepare the international contest of architecture launched in December 1970 and to set up the public corporation which was to be charged with construction and prefiguration with the Center.

The July 15th 1971, the jury of the international contest of architecture, chaired by Jean Proven, decided to retain, among the 681 projects presented, that of the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. The architects, to which the office of engineers Ove Arup & Partners was assistant, settled in the vicinity immediate of the buildings of the Bordaz mission, then in the buildings even of this one in 1973.

In January 1972, Robert Bordaz was named president of the public corporation of the Center Beaubourg , responsible for the construction of the Center. It brings together around him the future persons in charge of the cultural activities of the Center, the “users”, whom it constituted, as of 1971, in a “council of the users” which became, once the completed Center, the “board of management”:

  • Pontus Hulten, a Swede made to France in September 1973, was named director of the National museum of Modern art with a three year old contract. With its assistant, German Viatte, it was charged to design the new museum from a resolutely contemporary and international point of view.

  • Jean-Pierre Seguin, which was the first director of the Public library of information , was charged to implement this project to which he worked since 1967.
  • François Mathey became director of the Center of industrial creation , which it had created in 1968 within the central Union of decorative arts but which vegetated there without great ways.

The March 20th 1973, the Council of Ministers stopped the construction schedule and financial means the necessary ones, programmed over several years and allocated in the form of exceptional equipments out of the ordinary appropriations of the ministry for the cultural Affairs.

The final statute of the new institution was fixed by the law of the January 3rd 1975 bearing creation of the National center of art and culture Georges-Pompidou . Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Jacques Chirac, had had to battle firm against the new President of the Republic, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, which planned to stop the project. With his request, a cautious advice held in August 1974 had decided the continuation of work.

Inauguration at our days

The January 31st 1977, the National center of art and culture Georges Pompidou is inaugurated by Valery Giscard d'Estaing in the presence of the Prime Minister, Raymond Barre, of Mrs. Claude Pompidou and many personalities.

The architecture of the Center causes a sharp polemic: electric drains, staircases, metal footbridges, all that is traditionally dissimulated is voluntarily shown here with the sight of all. In Parisian slang, one calls the Center: Notre-Dame of Piping , or Pompidolium . One scoffs a “hangar at art”, a “gas works”, a “oil refinery”, a “cultural hold-all” or a “wart of avant-garde”. One stigmatizes expensive equipment which absorbs, the year of his inauguration, the seventh of the budget of the State for the culture.

But this discussed architecture functions and carries out the project of Renzo Piano who stated “to have wanted to demolish the image of a cultural building which makes fear. It is the dream of an extraordinarily free relationship between art and people, where one breathes the city at the same time”. The Center, planned for five thousand daily visitors, will accommodate of them finally five times more. The majority of the visitors come to see the great exposures on art, but the Public library of information and its media library beat also records of multitude.

In 1992, the CCI amalgamates with the MNAM. The successive directors of the museum renew the fixing deeply and make carry out important work.

End 1997, after having celebrated its twentieth birthday, the Center closes its doors to be renovated in-depth. The building site lasts twenty-seven month and costs nearly 576 million francs (88 million euros) financed height of 482 million by the State. Led by Renzo Piano, it makes it possible to increase the total surface area of 8.000 m ² and to reconfigure surfaces and volumes. During closing, the Center is decentralized by organizing in province 34 exposures “out the walls” which meet a sharp success, attracting more than 2.500.000 visitors.

As of its reopening, on January 1st 2000, success is still with go with eighty thousand visitors at the time of the first weekend. The visitors discover new services, a new organization of the rooms, vaster parts.

These changes in particular make it possible to expose more works and to propose more spectacles of dance, theater and music. The space devoted to the young people is also developed with the new gallery of the children where two exposures are presented each year.

Since December 2003, the Space 315, located at the first level, southern part (right before the southern gallery), accommodates, on 315 m ², of the contemporary artists. It is in particular here that each year the prize winner of the Prix Marcel Duchamp exposes.

The Center is open the every day, except Tuesday, of 11:00 to 22:00

Structure

The Center Pompidou occupies the site of old the unhealthy small island nº 1. Its construction was the international contest object of architecture, in accordance with the will of Georges Pompidou who had wished “that this contest be most flexible possible. This wants to say that the conditions of the contest will have to comprise only one minimum of constraints referring to the under consideration use of the places, and that it will belong to the architects according to these constraints to draw up their projects without having to be concerned with payments such as those relating to the limitation height. It is only in one second stage and on one of the projects adopted for their esthetic quality and their adaptation to the needs for a center of the modern art that one will be able to have to discuss this problem height. It is also appropriate that the contest is accessible to any architect from talent, it young person and would be deprived of financial means. The conditions of organization of the contest must thus envisage in forms to define the means for any architect whose project would have been noticed to be remunerated of its work and the committed expenses. ”

The July 19th 1971, a jury chaired by Robert Bordaz chose the project of the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, assisted by the programmist Gianfranco Franchini. Construction lasted of 1971 with 1977.

The project of Piano and Rogers was only, among all the projects suggested, to establish the building according to a North-South axis, respecting the urban screen of the district (with the axes of the Sébastopol boulevard and the Saint Martin's day streets and the Fox). This party allowed moreover to occupy only half of the ground by releasing a vast esplanade, the piazza , allowing the reception of the public and a more fluid connection between the building and the city.

The building is composed of 8 levels of 7.500 m ² each one, including two levels of basements. Each level forms a vast plate, entirely flexible, the whole of the carrying structure, as well as the various service shafts, being rejected with the periphery of the building, conferring a very characteristic appearance to him, compared by some critical with a Raffinerie of oil in the center of the city. All vertical circulations, people and fluids are rejected on the frontage: the coloured external pipes constitute a characteristic of the building. The conduits of Air conditioning are blue, the water pipes are green and the electric lines are yellow. The Ascenseur S are red. The white drains are ventilation ducts for the underground parts. Even the metal beams which compose the structure are apparent.

The intention of the architects was to place the services of logistics out of the body of the building in order to devote the totality of the interior to its vocation of museum. One of the disadvantages is important maintenance with respect to corrosion.

Homage somewhat shifted to the metal architecture of the 20th century and the architectural modernism, multiplying references and quotation, the building could be qualified of the last large modern building and first large post-modern building: “It is a building which makes seeming, it is a parody of technology” (Renzo Piano).

The upper floors offer a broad sight on Paris. One reaches it by the diagonal of the external escalators which, while crossing all the frontage in zigzag, give to the building its visual signature. Artists of street animate the piazza which faces the museum. A close basin exposes fountains consisted statues moving of Tinguely (metal structures) and Niki de Saint-Phalle (coloured forms). This fountain (the Fountain Stravinski) is a work in situ known as , insofar as the artists created it for this precise place. It symbolizes the music (noises of the mechanism or water run-off) and was placed beside the Research institute and acoustic coordination/music (IRCAM).

Statute and organization

According to the law n° 75-1 of the January 3rd 1975 bearing creation of the national center of art and culture Georges Pompidou, the Center is a “national public corporation in cultural matter”. It has as an aim of “supports the creation of the works of art and of the spirit, contributes to the enrichment of the cultural heritage of the nation, information and the formation of the public, the diffusion of artistic creation and the social communication of ensures operation and animation, in connection with the public agencies or private which are associated for him, of a cultural unit devoted to all the forms of artistic creation, in particular in the field of the visual arts, of acoustic and musical research, the industrial design, of the cinematographic art, like with the public reading” (article 1st).

The Center Georges Pompidou has the effect of being a public corporation with which several organizations equipped with the legal entity are associated:

The National museum of Modern art/Center of industrial creation belongs to the Center Georges Pompidou, of which it constitutes a department, but it is not equipped with the legal entity.

The Center is directed by a president, is named for five years in the Council of Ministers, and is renewable per three years periods. It is assisted, for the administration and management, by a named managing director, on his proposal, by the Minister for the Culture.

Presidents of the Georges-Pompidou Center

Cultural activities

Equipment

At the conclusion of the work carried out since 2000, the principal building of the Center shelters following spaces and activities:
  • the National museum of modern art: the permanent presentation of the collections of modern art has 15  000 m ² and present 1  permanently; 330 works on the 59  000 of 5  000 different artists whom the collection of the Center comprises (in 2006);
  • of the galleries of temporary exhibitions (design, photography, etc) occupies 5.200 m ² on the whole;
  • the Public library of information (BPI), with media library of languages, cinema, occupies 10.000 m ² and offers 2.200 sitted places;
  • a specialized library devoted to the art of the 20th century, the Kandinsky library, can also accommodate to 76 readers on a surface of 390 m ²;
  • within the museum, a space of documentary consultation multi-media on the collections;
  • two cinemas of 316 and 150 places;
  • a theater of 396 places;
  • a room of debates of 160 places;
  • a specific space for the young public with gallery of temporary exhibitions and workshops of artistic practice.

The Center also proposes a specialized bookstore (art, architecture, objets d'art, posters, photograph, etc) and a conceded restaurant, located at the last level ( Georges ).

Outside the principal building one finds:

  • on the piazza, the Workshop Brancusi;
  • a specific building which shelters the IRCAM, with in particular a room with variable accoustic gauge and, studios and a media library;
  • the offices as certain activities are distributed in four buildings in the vicinity immediate (an asset in 2004 and three in hiring).

Indicators of activity

In 2006, the Georges-Pompidou Center received 5  133  506 visitors, is an average of 16  776 visitors per day, including Bpi. Bpi accommodates on average 6  000 readers per day. Internet site received 3  083  735 visits in 2006, against 2  403  407 in 2005.

The Center organized in 2006 24 temporary exhibitions which received 1  623  000 visitors, while the presentation “the Movement of the images” on level 4 of the National museum of modern art received 1  from it; 120  000. It also organized 105 live performances which attracted 22  392 spectators and 857 film shows (84  328 spectators).

The Editions of the Georges-Pompidou Center published 36 works in 2006.

Principal temporary exhibitions

Judgments and quotations

  • “I would like passionately that Paris has an arts center as one sought to create some in the United States with a success up to now unequal which is at the same time a museum and a center of creation where the visual arts would be neighborly with the music, the cinema, the books, audio-visual research, etc the museum can be only of modern art, since we have Louvre. Creation would be obviously modern and would evolve/move unceasingly. The library would attract thousands of readers who at the same time would be put in contact with arts. ” (Georges Pompidou, maintenance published in Le Monde , October 17th, 1972)
  • “the Georges-Pompidou Center is the first monument of the Cultural revolution which consists in calling in question the concept even of beauty. It is the encyclopedia of a culture of the anguish. ” (Jean d' Ormesson)
  • “Beaubourg is for the first time on the scale of the culture what the hypermarket is on the scale of the goods. ” (Jean Baudrillard, the Beaubourg Effect. Implosion and dissuasion , Galileo, 1977, pp. 32-33)
  • “less thus a monument, than, if this word should me be invented: one moviment” (Francis Ponge, the Beaubourg writing, 1977)
  • “Mobile giant, kaleidoscope, reflection of the world to its shelter, the center Georges Pompidou is a place of truces and giddinesses, trottes and rest, wandering, training, bail and profane prayer. ” (Herve Guibert, work without end , text ordered at the time of Xe birthday of the Georges-Pompidou Center, in: Center Pompidou: thirty years of history , Paris, Editions of the Center Pompidou, 2007)
  • “a takeover by force, a rape, a kind of architectural King-Kong” ( Le Monde , January 18th, 1977)

Conclusion

“Great business” of the presidential mandate of Georges Pompidou, the National center of art and culture is the first of the presidential cultural great projects: it will be used of precedent, inspiration and model to those of Valery Giscard d'Estaing (the Musée of Orsay, the Institut of the Arab world, the Cité of sciences and industry), François Mitterrand (the Grand Louvre, the National library of France, the Arche of Defense) and Jacques Chirac (the Musée of the quay Branly).

Beyond the polemics caused by an architecture which appeared daring before finding its place in the landscape and Parisian urban fabric, the Center quickly was essential like an important success in terms of frequentation (200 million cumulated visitors of its opening at the end of 2006), thanks to gravitational and diversified programming and with shifted schedules of opening.

The Georges-Pompidou Center rehabilitated in France the concept of museum, which was in full stagnation at the time of its creation, and its success was at the origin of the multiplication of the institutions muséales in the years 1980 and 1990.

((Metrostation Wetten | Rambuteau))

See too

Related articles

External bonds

  • Official site of the Center Georges-Pompidou

Structure

  • architectural Guide of the Center Pompidou
  • Photographs on Insecula
  • Photographs of Beaubourg and its district

Official texts

  • (on the www.legifrance.gouv.fr site)
  • (on the www.legifrance.gouv.fr site)

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