Pompidou Center

1. Construction time : 1972 - 1977
2. Location : Paris, France

In December 1969, French President Georges Pompidou initiated an international competition to design an art museum and a national library, which received widespread acclaim. Building site French President - Georges Pompidou will be located in the area near Beaubourg, where four decades of devastation have created a vast parking lot right in the city center located between the City Hall and the Central Food Supermarket Les Halles recently moved.

But this ambitious project is more related to urban embellishment planning, because the elite component of French culture has the feeling that Paris will gradually be recognized as the prominent artistic capital of the world. gender like New York and London. The first was the Orsay Museum, Opera Bastille, Louvre, Bibliothèque Nationale and a host of other smaller cultural projects across France.Beaubourg will be the first - and arguably the most extraordinary - of the prestigious projects proposed by French presidents over a 30-year period.

Beaubourg quickly became a symbol, an expression of national spirit and a very successful era. In the process, Beaubourg also set a series of very high standards focusing on the later value of the project. But the implementation of the Beaubourg project was also remarkable because of the strong commitment of President Pompidou. He is personally responsible for proposing a public international competition (with more than 700 design registrations), and empowering judges under the direction of French industrial designer Jean Prouvé to award an important mansion for a surprising design of an unverified group of Italian and British architects, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. The only reaction of Pompidou when watching the results must be dumbfounded " We don't know the end of this project!" ("Ca va crier").

Beaubourg's immediate success with the number of visitors and visitors desires the work to bring cultural fame to the French capital, increasing the process of contributing money to the " city ​​marketing" stage.

Western façade: The interior has absolutely no columns required
relocate all structures, mass transit and exterior access roads.

Architecture like art

The opening of the Beaubourg in 1977 marked a significant development in the cultural and social life of Paris. For the modern art center Georges Pompidou - the name given after Pompidou died in 1974 - is simply not a place to store a collection of modern art and a library, but also incorporated in a multifaceted project. of modern culture, including architecture, industrial design, and contemporary music. The symbiotic gathering is almost exclusively in Beaubourg, which plays an important role in the ongoing cultural success of the building and the public's support.

For the project itself, Beaubourg seems to be the " high-tech " architectural work that originated in the 19th-century construction technique, designing the Bauhaus between the two wars and contemporary urban construction of the group. Archigram of England. Still criticized for the incredible gathering of oil platform components " on the continental shelf ", in fact Beaubourg is still a complex, sophisticated project, from the overall composition to the chair and door handle. All the following items are selected, designed and manufactured according to their own orders at a large cost.

Center scene Pompidou: Many guests went to the red elevator
to see Paris from the famous rooftop of the center, far away is Montmattre electricity.

With every day more than 25,000 visitors, Beaubourg became the " destination " of modern art important to its rationality. While many visitors enjoy the amenities, others prefer to learn the work from the inside out, take the elevator to the terrace to see the magnificent view of Paris.

Award winning design

Model contest, can see the western façade, towards the square.Some details, such as elevators change when the construction is nearly completed.

In 1970, Ove Arup was the world famous construction engineer responsible for building Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House, while unnamed architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers were attracted to Arup's group. competition.

Both Piano and Rogers were quickly confirmed to have a promising future through Beaubourg and advancement, each following very different paths, to make many meaningful works. Moreover, excellent talent for construction and architecture was combined with the construction team Beaubourg, including the late Edmund happold and Peter Rice engineers, and many others, affirming their position in history. late 20th century design.

While most contestants focused on spreading low-frequency projects on the site of the vast Beaubourg that respected the medieval center of Paris, the design summary contained many details in the competition. also requires architects to provide maximum " flexibility " inside when using the exhibition premises. The Piano and Rogers design team, suggesting the initial flexibility in building design - captured this requirement as its central layout principle. The result is a group of 6 columns, 42m high, each of 45 x 160m, overlooking a large square. With the help of colleagues in the Arup group, the team solved the structure, movement, air conditioning and floor space vacant.

The arrangement in the building is also very simple: " Visitors enter the western façade, the service area in the East, the exhibition premises are in the middle ". Visitors to various floors with a escalator on the west side and a plank, creating Beaubourg have a special facade and offer a breathtaking spectacle to the public standing in the square below. Service distribution on each floor is located on the east side.

The purpose of the design is to be flexible for at least a long time after the problem of coordination of structural and functional systems. The building cannot use conventional steel frame columns but must design and build only with outer columns and bracing. Following the bridge construction practices, Arup engineers proposed 13 horizontal frames in height by human body, each frame 12.8m apart, including vertical and floor frames. The concrete panels of fish

Many partitions and staircases can be removed in accordance with the vast wide spaces inside to the variety of exhibitions.

c floor pillow on the floor frame with the width of the body to lean on the gerberettes (cast steel wings cast into a detail). Horizontal components on each floor and diagonal mesh structure consisting of thinner pull bars create additional wind-proof bracing for the facade but do not hinder the inside of the building. The entire structural system, completed by a plastic cross bracing system like a truss in the north and south facades, is visible at each corner.

The project must withstand fire and weather that generates many problems, so gradually come up with appropriate solutions. Unburnt materials used for all interior equipment and vulnerable steel components are covered with metal insulation or special protective coatings.

Functional components such as wires, air conditioning, plumbing and vertical travel are designed by contractors in the building behind the conduit and column body, to be taken out, there are that is, it must be designed according to the architectural work, it looks elegant and reduces some components. Color codes show each type of service, including industry standard color codes, plus textured white, red for elevators and travel connections, blue for plumbing, yellow for rope Electric and blue or white indicate air conditioning systems.

If studying in more detail, the final composition was initially confusing in the eastern façade so that it was less similar to the oil drill floor (the frequent disparaging of Beaubourg) than Fernand Léger's painting.

Actual data:

1. Size: 60 x 166.4
2. Height: 42m
3. Total construction area: 135,000m ²
4. Upstream architecture: 70,000m ²
5. Infrastructure architecture: 65,000m ²
6. Cost: 476 million French courts

Architectural buildings proved to be on time

Although the approach requires detailed design - or longer selection - each of the last components, the project is allocated a 476 million French budget and on time for 5 years - spectacular implementation requires a set of special situations.

Eastern façade: Vertical travel, service and air conditioning are also used to isolate the site from the noise of outside traffic.

Once President Pompidou bravely decided to promote an ambitious project from unproven architects, and faced with predictable criticism, there was no risk of failure. Establishing a competent public agency, with the administration of cap official Robert Bordaz, the agency received instructions to ensure the project was on schedule, within the prescribed budget and solve all problems. Administration, this release, called today's " customer authorization " is the standard practice for state architecture projects in France and has a lot of influence on custom in many other countries.

Contrary to common practice, France could not authorize the design responsibility for contractors, the Piano and Rogers-Ove Arup groups were perfectly right to insist on controlling every aspect of design and specification. Their success for more than five years continuously negotiated - including the death of Pompidou in 1974, and the inauguration of President Giscard d'Estaing when the new project was implemented in large part thanks to talent, authority and support as Bordaz mediator.

In fact, solving the problem of Beaubourg proved too complicated for a group of centralized architectures and considerable authorization must be distributed in the main group. Arup's talent building engineering group handles conceptual design and structural calculations, while architectural design and services are delegated to internal team leaders according to their professional design capabilities: system construction, design and interior systems. The team shared a key philosophy that facilitates each specialized sub-sector to operate in a wide range of equipment suppliers to achieve the desired level of performance, appearance and perfection. This helps Piano and Rogers architects, other Arup engineers like Happold and Rice, focus their efforts on negotiating and monitoring basic issues.

The following work is very similar to the design at the time of the amazing test, some important concepts that were originally lost in the construction process must be considered a respect for the design philosophy that many people share, The talent of the design team and the relentless efforts of everyone involved.

Beaubourg will be the first - and arguably the most extraordinary -
Among the prestigious projects proposed by French presidents over a period of more than 30 years.