The Centre Pompidou

The Centre Pompidou is one of Paris' most well-known landmarks, thanks to its bright colors, exposed pipes, and air ducts. Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, a then-unknown Italo-British architectural pair, won the competition with their 'inside-out' boilerhouse design, which placed air-conditioning, pipes, lifts, and escalators on the outside while leaving an adjustable space inside. The multidisciplinary concept of a modern art museum (Europe's largest), library, exhibition and performance venues, and repertory cinema was equally groundbreaking.

When the center first opened in 1977, it was a huge success. The centre reopened in 2000 after a two-year renovation, with an expanded museum, new performance spaces, a vista-rich Georges restaurant, and a mission to return to the exciting interdisciplinary mix of the past. The forum is free to enter (as is the library, which has its own entrance), but you must now pay to use the escalators.

Purchase tickets on the ground floor for the main collection and escalators to level four for post-1960s art. Level five covers the years 1905 to 1960. On each of these two levels, there are four temporary exhibition spaces (included in the ticket). The main temporary exhibitions are held on the ground floor, in gallery two on level six, in the south gallery on level one, and in the new Espace 315, which is dedicated to artists under the age of forty.

Location: Place Georges Pompidou, Paris, IdF 75004

Website: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en