Megastructures and Monuments

Abstract

The Pompidou Centre, completed in 1977 by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, is one of the most well-known and iconic buildings of the twentieth century. Its cultural and urban significance, particularly in relation to the 1968 Paris riots, and as a precedent for the Grands Projets, has resonated widely. For architecture, the Pompidou Centre is often accounted for as one of the few buildings to materialise the neo-avant-garde architectural experiments that proliferated in the 1960s, and indeed as marking the exhaustion of these practices. In this article I investigate the international competition for the design of the Pompidou Centre, held between December 1970 and June 1971, and its relevance for understanding the historiographic significance of this moment in architectural culture, and of the Pompidou Centre. Organised in the early days of the presidency of Georges Pompidou, the Concours International d'Idees pour le Centre du Plateau Beaubourg, named after the site it would occupy in the Marais district of central Paris, was significant for being open and international at a time when France's agenda to modernise its capital was enmeshed in the nationalist impulse associated with the aftermath of the war. The competition attracted 681 entries from 46 countries, and in many ways it captured a vivid impression of the debates in architectural culture associated with the revision of Modernism and the search for an architecture that was more responsive to both the emotional and material needs of society.