Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou: National Monument and Live Centre of Information. Chronicles of idea, project and fabrication, 1968-1977

The Centre Beaubourg of Paris, now known as the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, conceived by Piano+Rogers Architects and Ove Arup & Partners, between 1971 and 1977, represents one of the rare synthesis of the architectural, constructional, artistic, political and cultural effervescence of the 1960s. The Centre Pompidou is Georges Pompidou's presidential monument designed to put France back at the centre of the architectural debate and to offer Parisians a venue dedicated to contemporary art and culture. It is the project by Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini and Piano+Rogers Architects, conceived as a flexible, anti-monumental infrastructure to rehabilitate the neighbourhood and act as a broadcast of information, but destined to give up that flexibility and broadcasting role following the discovery of the aesthetic and expressive value of technical equipments. It is the manifesto for a new kind of metal structure conceived by Ted Happold, Peter Rice and Lennart Grut of Ove Arup & Partners to revive the special technique of steel casting and lead it to unprecedented expressive results. Finally, the Centre Pompidou is the difficult attempt to hold together the visions of Pompidou, Piano+Rogers Architects and Ove Arup & Partners, between a flexible environment and an expressive structural and technical machine, between a national monument and a popular anti-monumental infrastructure, between technological devices serving the user and spectacular technology.

On the eve of its closure for the largest restoration campaign ever carried out, this research aims to investigate the Centre Pompidou to reconstruct its history, resorting for the first time to a scientific investigation based on the use of  all the archival sources accessible to researchers.

On the occasion of the public defense of his thesis, Boris Hamzeian presents the results of his research, questioning the Centre Pompidou through a series of decisive components of this work, from the principle of flexibility to the question of monumentality, through the evolution of its technical installations and its structure.

The presentation will be accompanied by an exhibition of archival documents relating to the realisation of the Centre Pompidou and an aperitif in Hall SG.