Centre Pompidou

Centre George Pompidou perfectly epitomizes all those cases when the very building competes for supremacy with its contents. Named after a former President of France and completed between 1971 and 1977, the center is truly a weird construction. Representing hi-tech architecture, it's a skeleton of shapes, colors, cables, boxes, and tubes, as if the designer wanted to turn a complex machine inside out. The composition provides distinctive home for a public library, the Bibliothèque publique d'information, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, and a centre for music and acoustic research (IRCAM). Most importantly, the center succeeds in thriving as a space with ordinary people at the heart of art and culture. Surrounded by artistic creation, the public feels at home, rather than at a cold gallery that stands aloof over the society.