Archinect - News

Centre Pompidou extends planned closure to five years

2023-05-12T11:14:00-04:00

The Centre Pompidou, Paris’s top museum for modern and contemporary art, has officially set out plans to close for five years starting in 2025 while it undergoes a €262 million ($283.6 million) renovation. Although the museum had previously announced a long-term shuttering, it was expected to begin this year and last only through 2027. Now, the museum has lengthened its closure period by a year. The new timeline also means the museum will not reopen in time for its 50th anniversary in 2027.

Details on the extent of the renovations remain thin but reportedly will entail asbestos removal and upgrades to the high-tech marvel’s highly-visible mechanical systems, heating, and AC. The museum will thus operate out of its forthcoming satellites in Brussels and Jersey City, New Jersey, designed by noAarchitecten, EM2N, and Sergison Bates (Belgium) and OMA (United States), respectively, beginning in 2025.

Centre Pompidou President Serge Lasvignes said previously, “This work guarantees a future for the Centre Pompidou. It is essential if it is to remain a world icon of modernity and architecture.” Meanwhile, a new retrospective exhibition of Norman Foster (who told the New York Times he was on hand at its 1977 opening in support of his friend Richard Rogers) debuted Wednesday and will remain on view until August 7th.

Norman Foster previews his Centre Pompidou retrospective for the New York Times

2023-05-11T11:47:00-04:00

I’ve responded to an invitation. Nobody could knock on the door of the Pompidou Center and say, “Hey, I had this idea.” This wasn’t my idea. I’m responding to an invitation, and I’m honored on behalf of so many people to accept it. I’m excited about the future. I think the future is more interesting than the past. I leave the past to other people.

The 1999 Pritzker Prize winner also delved into topics as far ranging as his yearslong dispute with environmental activists, representation of women in architecture, engagements in Saudi Arabia, NEOM, so-called "starchitects," and the world to come. The exhibition features some 130 major projects, covering areas like his love for cars, early collaboration with Buckminster Fuller, and more, all honed in on themes of "sustainability and anticipating the future."

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

Curator Frédéric Migayrou breaks down Foster’s six-decade output into seven thematic sections: Nature and Urbanity; Skin and Bones; Vertical City; History and Tradition; Planning and Places; Networks and Mobility; and Future.

The exhibition, titled Norman Foster, is open now and will remain on view until August 7th.

Centre Pompidou is expanding to Seoul and Saudi Arabia

2023-03-28T11:44:00-04:00

The iconic Centre Pompidou has confirmed that it will open a branch in Seoul, South Korea. The new museum, set to open in 2025, will join the center’s existing network of outposts in Shanghai, Malaga, and the French city of Metz.

According to Artnews, the new museum will be housed in the headquarters of South Korean business conglomerate Hanwa Group, in a skyscraper known as 63 Square. French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte is expected to oversee the design of the museum, having previously fulfilled interior design roles for the Louvre Museum and the British Museum.

When opened, the so-called “Pompidou Center Hanwha Seoul” will have permission to use the French museum’s properties for four years in a deal reported to be worth approximately 20 million USD. Throughout the four-year collaboration, the center will offer eight monographic exhibitions, spanning two per year, based on a selection of works from ...

Richard Rogers was a colorful character in a world of concrete and steel

2021-12-20T17:23:00-05:00

Heavyweight, humanist, intellectual hero, and pioneer of the high-tech style. Such are the remembrances of a beloved architectural icon seen in the outpouring of tributes circulating on social media following the death of Richard Rogers in London over the weekend.

Reminiscent of the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, Rogers was a genius in the application of color theory to his creative work. His breakthrough Pompidou Center is considered a landmark in part for its incorporation of symbolic color coding as signifiers of the building’s mechanical services and can trace its inspiration to early projects such as the unbuilt Zip-Up House and family home in Wimbledon.

A model of the Zip-Up house courtesy of Loz Pycock via Flickr.

Born in Florence and educated at the Architectural Association and Yale, Rogers was known for his attire as well as his architecture, affecting a style that was noted by almost every architecture student, designer, and member of the press that he interacted with...

OMA Releases Images for the New Pompidou x Jersey City

2021-06-07T13:41:00-04:00

The Pompidou Centre is opening a new venue in New Jersey. Known for its high-tech Paris building with an eye-catching exoskeleton, exterior pipes, and externalized stairs, the museum is planning a new location to be housed in a renovated brick building. Just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, the new site is in the Journal Square neighborhood of Jersey City.

While the Pompidou already has multiple locations in cities across Europe—and as far away as Shanghai—this will be the center’s first American venture, one which it has apparently been planning for years.

OMA released a rendering, which was published in the New York Times on Friday, June 5. According to a Jersey City Redevelopment Agency and OMA/AMO request for proposal, the 58,000-square-foot, historic Pathside Building is one of the city’s “most distinguished.” Constructed in 1912 to service public trolleys, it was later refurbished to house a community college. The city purchased it in 2018.

The Times reports that the r...

The Centre Pompidou due to close for three-year renovation

2021-01-26T13:59:00-05:00

The Centre Pompidou in Paris will close for three years from the end of 2023 for essential maintenance work, the museum announced [Monday] in a statement. The plan is for France’s national museum for Modern and contemporary art, designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano and inaugurated in 1977, to reopen in time for its 50th anniversary in 2027.

The renovations will reconcile corrosion and wear and tear that has been affecting the building. Moreover, the work will remove asbestos within the structure, "meeting safety, technical and energy standards and making the building accessible for people with reduced mobility," reports The Arts Newspaper.

Centre Pompidou Paris may receive a major overhaul

2020-09-29T16:14:00-04:00

The Centre Pompidou in Paris could close for up to three years for essential maintenance work to be carried out on the famous 1970s building. The plan is one of two options under consideration by the French government who will decide how to proceed with the multi-million euro refurbishment.

Centre Pompidou to create "art factory" in Parisian suburbs

2019-10-17T14:45:00-04:00

The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris has unveiled plans to expand to a suburban site by creating a new "art factory" that will both display and conserve the museum's expansive art collections.

An architect for the proposal has not been named. The scheme is slated for an existing parking lot in the city's Massy area to the southwest of the city center, The Art Newspaper reports.

View of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user GraphyArchy.

According to a statement, the new 22,000 square meter facility will create a "centre of excellence for the conservation and restoration of the works in the collection, and a new cultural and creative venue deeply rooted in its territory.” The Art Newspaper reports that the 120,000 works held by the Musée national d’art moderne that are currently displayed at the Centre Pompidou will also make their way to the outpost. The new facility will be designed as a hybrid space that is set to include "a multipurpose exhibition venue,"...

Centre Pompidou Shanghai to open next month in Chipperfield-designed West Bund Art Museum

2019-10-03T13:43:00-04:00

The Centre Pompidou’s long-awaited offshoot branch in Shanghai will open on 8 November [...]. Exhibitions drawn from the holdings of the Beaubourg Gallery will be shown in the new outpost, called Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum, based in a wing of the 25,000 sq. m West Bund Art Museum designed by the UK architect David Chipperfield.

Designs by David Chipperfield Architects for Shanghai's new West Bund Art Museum, which will house the Centre Pompidou satellite space, were first revealed in 2017.

The opening is scheduled for November 8, The Art Newspaper reports.

Christo comes to Paris in 2020 to wrap the Arc de Triomphe

2019-04-03T14:17:00-04:00

The artist Christo has announced plans to wrap the Arc de Triomphe in Paris next spring, covering the Champs-Élysées landmark with almost 25,000 sq. m of silvery blue fabric, made of recyclable polypropylene, and 7,000 metres of red rope. The piece, entitled L’Arc de Triomphe Wrapped (Project for Paris, Place de l’Etoile-Charles de Gaulle), which will be on view 6-19 April 2020, will be overseen by officials at the government body the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and the Centre Pompidou.

"Its realization will coincide with a major exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, from March 18 to June 15, 2020, retracing Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s years in Paris from 1958 to 1964, as well as the story of The Pont-Neuf Wrapped, Project for Paris, 1975-85," explains the artist's announcement.

Christo, The Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, Place de l'Etoile, Charles de Gaulle, Paris, Collage 2019, 11 x 8 1/2” (28 x 21.5 cm), Pencil, wax crayon, enamel paint, photograph by Wolfgang Volz and tape, Photo: André Grossmann © 2019 Christo

Last summer, Christo presented his first large artwork in Britain: the 150-tonne Mastaba sculpture floating on the Serpentine Lake in London, while the nearby Serpentine Gallery showed the accompanying exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Barrels and The Mastaba (1958–2018).

David Chipperfield: West Bund Art Museum and 'funny-shaped architecture' in China

2019-03-26T13:27:00-04:00

In an interview in his Berlin offices with The Art Newspaper, Chipperfield spoke about the frustratingly free brief for the West Bund Art Museum, China’s unstoppable urban development and the ethical questions that arise for architects working in countries with authoritarian regimes.

When asked about China's slowing economic growth and increasing authoritarianism, Chipperfield answers: "I would say the narrative about the diminishing expansion of the economy is offset by the slightly more sophisticated environment that is evolving. The Chinese are getting better at building. Clients there are understanding better how to put projects together, being a bit more careful about what they build and increasingly sceptical about doing 'funny-shaped architecture'."

West Bund Art Museum, model photo. Image: David Chipperfield Architects

For Paris Fashion Week, Louis Vuitton recreates the Pompidou Centre

2019-03-11T16:50:00-04:00

Closing out Paris Fashion Week, Louis Vuitton's runway show was set inside a museum within a museum. Put on by artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière, the fashion brand recreated the Centre Pompidou inside the Louvre, transporting Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers' multi-colored piping and other iconic features to a great glass box at the historic museum's Cour Carrée.

Mr. Ghesquière was inspired by the way the revolutionary building, the design for which was heavily criticized at the time, has become a distinctive symbol of the city. He told the Guardian, "it has become central to Paris, to culture, to young people, to everyone who loves the future. Your eye gets used to something, and your tastes evolved and change.”

Like the Pompidou, Louis Vuitton is pushing on the boundaries of taste this season, sending down a collection of awkward pairing and visually jarring shapes. Done in collaboration with La Mode En Image, the international agency known for its transformative set designs an...

The Centre Pompidou in Paris acquires 12 architectural models from MAD Architects

2019-02-28T19:16:00-05:00

Known for their futuristic expressions of the built environment, MAD Architects has developed a reputation for designs that exhibit an organically dream-like aesthetic. By pulling elemental influences from nature, each architectural concept strives to strike a balance between the surrounding environment, cityscapes, and humanity. The famed Centre Pompidou in Paris has recently acquired 12 stunning architecture models that illustrate projects MAD have created between 2005 to the present day.

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (Los Angeles) model ; Image courtesy of MAD Architects

The collection is a reflection of the firm's design ethos and their take on architecture's progression and evolution towards designing the future. Each model represents various structural typologies, ranging from a contemporary kindergarten, residential towers, mixed-use complexes, and cultural buildings. Individually, each model also exhibits elements of artistic aptitude due to the level of precision and constr...

The Pompidou grows its global network of pop-ups and outposts

2018-05-03T15:21:00-04:00

With outposts and partnerships either launched or pending in Metz, Málaga, Brussels, the Gulf, Shanghai and possibly Latin America, is the Centre Pompidou turning into a new Guggenheim, eager to extend its influence globally? Encouraged by the success of its Málaga branch and of Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Pompidou’s president [...] steering it into a number of new ventures, which he believes will deepen the Parisian museum’s relationship with artistic centres it might otherwise be unable to reach.

Lots on the books for the Pompidou in the coming months: the Málaga outpost, originally conceived as a temporary pop-up, may be extended for another five years; the new Kanal-Centre Pompidou in Brussels opens a teaser exhibition and begins its €140m construction project; David Chipperfield's Shanghai Centre Pompidou/West Bund Art Museum is coming next spring; partnership with King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Saudi Arabia renewed; and Bogotá may be happening next.

Too risqué for the Louvre, the Domestikator will be shown at Pompidou

2017-10-13T13:36:00-04:00

After the Louvre demurred, an art installation many consider to be sexually explicit will instead be displayed outside the Pompidou Center in Paris.

The Louvre might not want it, but the Pompidou will take it!

The 40-foot-tall, semi-building, semi-sculpture, "Domestikator," by the Dutch art and design collective Atelier Van Lieshout, was intended to be shown in the Tuileries Gardens, next to the Louvre. But the Museum cancelled the project; the Louvre's president and director, Jean-Luc Martinez explained: “Online commentaries point out this work has a brutal aspect. It risks being misunderstood by visitors to the gardens.”

Joep van Lieshout, Atelier Van Lieshout’s founder, replied, “The piece itself is not really very explicit. It’s a very abstracted shape. There are no genitals; it’s pretty innocent.”

While Louvre faced censorship accusations, the "Domestikator" will find asylum at the Centre Pompidou. Parisians and tourists will be able to see the work from October 18 to 22; we hope they don't misunderstand it.

London buildings are not what they used to be

2017-10-04T15:33:00-04:00

Today, London’s civic spaces are the byproduct of commercial development, the results of promises made by developers to create public amenity as a condition of planning consent. Ironically, Paris, which once imported its radical architecture from London in the form of the Pompidou Centre, now has a much more visionary approach to building, (...) it is much more of a nexus for interesting architecture.

London's contemporary architecture seems to have lost the radical qualities of British Architecture of the 1960s and 1970s.

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano will get their very own statues in front of the Centre Pompidou

2017-09-27T15:35:00-04:00

The French artist Xavier Veilhan has created sculptures of the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers that will be permanently installed next month in Place Edmond Michelet outside the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The pair designed the distinctive museum, which opened in 1977.

Don't miss our 2015-podcast interview with Xavier Veilhan for Archinect Sessions. We talked with the Paris-based artist and his Los Angeles-collaborator, François Perrin, about their series of interventions into some of the world's most famous modernist landmarks and the resulting book, Architectones.

Richard Rogers on the Centre Pompidou: "I would never dream of doing it now"

2017-08-29T14:08:00-04:00

Where we would be without the energetic (if usually misinformed) enthusiasm of youth? Apparently, without the Centre Pompidou as we know it. In this comprehensive and enjoyable profile in The Guardian, Richard Rogers reflects on his early days as an architect after he and his freshly-made friend Renzo Piano had won a competition in Paris for the now famous cultural center.

Image: Bruno via Flickr

As the article relates, "Having won it, they had no idea what it was that he was taking on. 'Young architects are immensely naive,' [Rogers] says. 'I would never dream of doing it now. We had a great client, but the press gave us hell. In seven years, there were only two positive articles. I don’t know how we got to the end.'"

David Chipperfield's stately design for the Shanghai Centre Pompidou revealed

2017-08-08T14:42:00-04:00

Stately, elegant, reflective: these adjectives have largely described the work of British architect David Chipperfield, whose structures tend to invite contemplation and pause before hot take Instagramming. His selection as the architect of the West Bund Art Museum in the new cultural center created jointly by the Centre Pompidou and Shanghai's West Bund Group is therefore not surprising, especially in light of China's recent dictate to steer away from "weird" architecture.

Image: David Chipperfield Architects

The renderings for the proposed 25,000 square meter structure display Chipperfield's signature moves: meticulously calibrated volumes stack atop and adjacent to one another near a reflective body of water. The renderings steer away from bold colors, favoring muted pastels. The interior renderings also convey a serene setting: an ample entrance hall is not flooded with visitors, but rather hosts only a receptionist and a single guest, effectively conveying the notion of unharrie...

Renzo Piano about the "idea of openness as an antidote to terrorism"

2017-05-30T13:46:00-04:00

For Renzo Piano, every building should tell a story. The 79-year-old architect is as busy as ever with a workload that spans from Los Angeles to Uganda. With no signs of fatigue in a nearly 50-year career, Piano doesn’t struggle to find meaning in each new project. “I’ve wanted to make buildings since I was a kid,” says the Italian-born architect, who fondly recalls spending time at construction sites with his dad.

CityLab recently sat down with Piano for a conversation that, among other topics, touched on urban peripheries, Columbia University’s new Manhattanville Campus, and "the importance of designing buildings that reject paranoia in a world increasingly concerned with terrorism."

The Pompidou Centre to get a €100M facelift

2017-01-20T12:33:00-05:00

Even the most punk of buildings eventually gets older. The Pompidou Centre in Paris, the landmark contemporary art museum designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, turns forty this year. To mark its birthday, the museum will get a two-year long facelift estimated to cost at least €100 million.

The renovations will include replacing the “caterpillar”, the famous escalators on the front of the building, but won’t result in any changes to the building’s overall appearance. Additionally, museum officials are hoping that renovations can occur without closing the Centre.

Part of the reason the building needs the renovation is that its innovative design, which comprises putting the inner workings of the building on its exterior, has led to increased wear and tear. Back in the day, its appearance caused a ton of controversy. But today, the museum is witnessing a rise in attendance that surpasses either the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay.

“Le Corbusier was a combination of blind and naïve about all politics”

2015-07-13T15:08:00-04:00

“There’s still a myth surrounding Le Corbusier, that he’s the greatest architect of the 20th century, a generous man, a poet,” [journalist Xavier] de Jarcy said. That vision, he added, is “a great collective lie.” [...] “He is someone who thought that reform, social change, could only be made by an authority.” [...] “That’s why Le Corbusier is interesting, because of his own passions and the way he crosses the passions of the century.”

For more on the tug-of-war over Le Corbusier's politics and architectural ideology:

Pompidou responds to "fascist" Le Corbusier claims

2015-04-30T13:31:00-04:00

The Pompidou Centre in Paris has hit back at critics who say its Le Corbusier exhibition, which opened to the public yesterday, 29 April, glosses over recent accusations that the Swiss-born French architect was a militant fascist with links to the Vichy regime. A spokeswoman for the Pompidou says the exhibition does not refer to Le Corbusier’s fascist past because “it’s about the proportions of the human body, which are present in his architecture and painting. [...]”

Previously: Le Corbusier "militant fascist" claims overshadow 50th death anniversary

Málaga unveils outposts of two high-profile museums in one week

2015-03-27T15:00:00-04:00

For Málaga’s mayor, Francisco de la Torre, the rebirth of Hotel Miramar is a sign that his €100m gamble on rebranding the city is paying off. During his 15 years in office he has lead an aggressive campaign to turn Málaga into a place brimming with culture. [...] His campaign reached new heights this week with the opening of the first foreign outposts of two high-profile museums: the Centre Pompidou Málaga and the Málaga branch of the St Petersburg State Russian Museum.

Previously: Centre Pompidou to cover France with pop-ups

Centre Pompidou to cover France with pop-ups

2015-02-12T14:47:00-05:00

Towns and cities across France will soon be able to boost their culture offerings by hosting pop-up branches of the Centre Pompidou. The Paris museum is expanding its empire, and aims to establish domestic temporary outposts. “We will soon launch an open call for candidates [to select a French city],” says a spokesman for the Centre Pompidou. These pop-ups will remain open for four years.

HdM's Triangle skyscraper continues to divide Paris over its historic identity

2014-12-22T12:54:00-05:00

Alexandre Gady, conservationist, historian of French architecture and professor of modern architecture at the Sorbonne, argues that changing or “renewing” Paris diverts from its real need to look outwards. Paris, he says, is a “finished” city that does not need improving or anything more doing to it. “It’s not that we should be doing this or that – we should not be doing anything in central Paris ... any plan is a diversion from the need of the city to grow outwards,” [...]

Previously: Paris row after HdM's Triangle skyscraper rejected

Centre Pompidou To Open Design and Architecture Gallery

2014-11-06T14:01:00-05:00

[...] a gallery dedicated to design and architecture will soon also be added the Centre. Like the “Galerie de Photographies," which is housed in former technical facilities, the future design gallery will be located within the existing Piano + Rogers-designed building. “Eventually, there should be almost no offices in the building, and we'll keep only the technical facilities that are strictly indispensable," said Seban.

An Architect’s Big Parisian Moment

2014-10-21T13:31:00-04:00

In a cultural twofer that makes it Frank Gehry week here, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, a private cultural center and contemporary-art museum designed by Mr. Gehry, had its official inaugural ceremony on Monday, attended by the French president, François Hollande. At the same time, the Pompidou Center across town is giving Mr. Gehry, based in Los Angeles, a major career retrospective, his first in Europe.

Previously: Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton to open this October

‘Museum directors hated Bilbao’

2014-10-13T18:00:00-04:00

At 85, the architect Frank Gehry has neither stopped building nor started repeating himself and this month offers plenty of proof. Besides the unveiling of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, which he designed for the billionaire Bernard Arnault, the explosively coloured Biomuseo in Panama opened on 2 October followed by a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, which opened on Wednesday, 8 October (until 26 January 2015). Gehry dispels some common misconceptions about his museum designs.

Bernard Tschumi retrospective opens on April 30 at Centre Pompidou, Paris

2014-04-09T20:41:00-04:00

Book a trip to the Centre Pompidou in Paris this summer. The Centre is hosting the first major European retrospective of iconic French-Swiss architect and theorist Bernard Tschumi from April 30 to July 28, 2014. Exploring Tschumi's work from 1975 to the present, the exhibition will feature a thematic arrangement of archival documents, films, and around 350 of his never-before-seen sketches, drawings, collages, and models -- all displayed in an installation he designed himself.

"The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou — based on Bernard Tschumi’s work as an architect, educator, and writer — explores the making of architecture as a series of arguments, ideas, influences, and responses to the contemporary definition of architecture today."

Get more details on Bustler.