Tropicana Magazine Sep-Oct 2017: Fortune Favours The Brave

THE HOME
Centre Pompidou
anniversary this year, the number increased last year due
to a rise in local visitors - an ironic bit of information
considering that it was denounced as a blight on the
skyline when it was first unveiled in 1977. Designed by
Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, these architects are
now celebrated as national treasures and Pritzker Prize
laureates, but back then they were just young architects
starting out. Because they thought they had no chance
of winning such an immense commission, they worked
with complete freedom, creating a futuristic scaffold
frame with all the functional mechanics (like the lifts
and escalators) on the outside, rather than hidden
away behind a conventional facade. While this was
aesthetically daring, it was also supremely practical as
it freed up exhibition and performance space inside.
Its unconventional design was seen as a deliberate
affront to Haussmann’s symmetrical paradigm and
caused an uproar amongst the locals. Nonetheless,
with time, Parisians have taken the quirky Pompidou
to their hearts, and as the number of visitors show, it
has become as much a part of Paris as the Eiffel Tower
(another avant-garde structure which caused shock and
outrage in its day).
43 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017 | TM