Paris: an African explorer on the Beaubourg plateau

Abstract

The Georges Pompidou National Centre for Art and Culture is often called the Pompidou Centre or just Beaubourg, from the name of the plateau on which it stands in Paris, not far from the River Seine and Notre Dame Cathedral. Its reputation has spread worldwide. But how many people, apart from its staff and a handful of inveterate visitors (inveterate almost to the point of obsession in some cases, it is said), have actually explored every nook and cranny of the place, felt its pulse and captured its every mood?To enable you to discover or rediscover it from a new angle Museum asked a museologist from the Central African Republic, Victor Bissengué, to forget his scientific background for a minute (he holds a doctorate in cinematographic and audio‐visual studies) and his experience of some years as a sound engineer at the Pompidou Centre, and take us with him up onto the Beaubourg plateau on a guided tour or, rather, on a voyage of discovery of a country whose hinterland has much to reveal.We wager that the ‘log’ of this journey will be full of surprises for you, even (especially?) if you are one of the Pompidou Centre's regular visitors.