The Georges Pompidou Center

The National Museum of Modern Art Centre Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg Center or simply as Pompidou Center, is located in the heart of Paris, between the neighborhoods of Les Halles and Le Marais and not far from City Hall (Hotel de Ville).

Rue Saint-Martin, passing in front of the main entrance of the museum, is one of the oldest in Paris, with over 2000 years of existence. This area since the Middle Ages attracted many bankers and traders who settled there forming the Beau Bourg, something like "beautiful neighborhood," an elite neighborhood in full swing traders.
With the passage of time and in the nineteenth, the Beaubourg a poor area where a lot of humble people became congested. By the early twentieth century and considering unhealthy, the neighborhood was razed. So, for 40 years before the construction of the Centre Pompidou it worked in a parking place.

President Georges Pompidou, lover of the arts, who was promoted in 1970 the idea of ​​creating a place in the old Beaubourg that would meet the contemporary arts, and this opened an architectural competition, after a selection among 681 projects from 49 countries, said yes to the idea of ​​Renzo Piano, Gianfranco Franchini (both Italian) and Richard Rogers (English).

The idea was for other modern and daring; an absolutely modern set, with metallic structures and vivid colors that reveal everything you normally want to hide: pipes, ducts and heating service, stairs, etc.
The building is a huge rectangular prism of 166 meters long by 60 wide and 42 deep, with facades of glass and metal structure which is fully visible. On the east facade, back on the Rue du Renard, the blue-painted pipes red, green, yellow, or are, as air transport, water, electricity or act as service elevators or stairs. Large white chimneys that appear on the square in front of the museum are underground ventilation ducts as well as those that are on the roof.

The west facade, on the Rue Saint-Martin, is traversed diagonally by a staircase transparent mechanism that provides access to the various levels of the museum while providing a view of Paris as it rises. 

Behind the staircase is circular walkways that allow the facade as a balcony.
The result of this type of construction allowed free inside any structure that could disturb the organization of space in the museum and any subsequent amendments. And 7 levels (including basement and terrace) of 7500 m2 square were obtained. During the renovation works that were made between 1998 and 1999 the museum could be completely transformed inside without touching any supporting structure.

The Pompidou Centre was built between 1972 and 1977, was inaugurated by President Giscard d'Estaing on 31 January 1977. Major were the controversies surrounding the appearance of the museum; Parisians called him "the refinery in the city" to "Notre Dame de la Tuyauterie" (Our Lady of the pipe). The truth is that the center, which was scheduled for 5000 visits daily received up to 5 times, and since its opening passed through it 150 million visitors.
In the Georges Pompidou Center Public Information Library (BPI), one of its main attractions, as well as various showrooms of modern and contemporary art, the Gallery of Children (a space for adults and children with workshops of expression and works samples awareness creation), cinemas, discussion and lecture, shows and concerts. There are also libraries, shops, a rooftop restaurant and post office.