Centre Pompidou

Centre Georges Pompidou (constructed 1971–1977 and known as the Pompidou Centre in English) is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles and the Marais.

It houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information, a vast public library, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg. It is named after Georges Pompidou, who was President of France from 1969 to 1974, and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by the then-French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Architecture
The Centre was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, the British architect couple Richard Rogers and Sue Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini, the British structural engineer Edmund Happold (who would later found Buro Happold) and Irish structural engineer Peter Rice. The project was awarded to this team in an architectural design competition, whose results were announced in 1971. Reporting on Rogers' winning the Pritzker Prize in 2007, the New York Times noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down" and that "Mr. Rogers earned a reputation as a high-tech iconoclast with the completion of the 1977 Pompidou Center, with its exposed skeleton of brightly colored tubes for mechanical systems. The Pritzker jury said the Pompidou “revolutionized museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city.”

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How To Get There

• Nearby Métro stations: Rambuteau, Les Halles
• RER Châtelet - Les Halles

Click here for Google Map
Click here for Access Map (Floor Plan)

Hours
open every day from 11am to 10pm, except Tuesdays and May 1.

Admission
Museum & exhibitions ticket

• Low Rate: €10 (Regular Fee), €8 (Concessionary)
• High Rate: €12 (Regular Fee), €9 (Concessionary)

Shows, concert €18 (Regular Fee), €14 (Concessionary)
Cinemas €6 (Regular Fee), €4 (Concessionary)
Children’s Screen €3 (Regular), €2 (Concessionary)

under 18s, members, disabled visitors, unemployed people . Proof of status required.(others)Museum free for all visitors on the first Sunday of the month.

High Rate from May 7 to August 11, 2008: Opening of the Gallery 1 (exhibition Traces du Sacré). Low Rate from August 11, 2008: closure of the Gallery 1.