Centre Pompidou

Centre Pompidou, or Centre Georges Pompidou, is one of the most famous attractions in Paris. As far as I know, everyone wants to pay a visit to Centre Pompidou when he or she arrives in Paris. Indeed, the building of Centre Pompidou is special and worth a look at. However, I don't think the exhibitions inside are suitable for everyone. The permanent exhibition displays a wide range of modern artworks, including some very important artworks in the art history, but modern art does not suit the taste of everybody. Most people tend to like seeing classic art but frown upon modern art. If you're amongst them, then it won't be worthy for you to pay for the ticket. However, if you are an art lover, then the ticket price will be worthwhile. Even if you are an art lover who is not very into modern art, the big names in art history, such as Matisse, Picasso, and Kandinsky, will excite you and drive you to buy the ticket, won't they?

Let's first look at the building of Centre Pompidou:

As I was saying, the building itself is a piece of modern art. The picture above shows just the facade, but the back side of the building looks even more interesting: the back side looks as if the building was made of numerous tubes. In front of the facade is a square, which is a good place for a picnic.

At weekends, there's usually a queue before the front gate. There's a security check at the gate, so it takes some time to get into the building. Food or drinks are not allowed to be brought into the building.

The ground floor is the place to buy tickets, and it has a gift shop and a bookshop. There's a cafeteria on the first floor. To see a temporary exhibition, you have to go to the fourth floor, and to see the permanent exhibition, you need to get to the fifth floor. In the corridor of the fourth or the fifth floor, if you look outside, you can have a good view like this:

I took this picture on a rainy day, but it still looks good. You can see the whole Paris from there.

Now let me show you some photos of the permanent exhibition. I'm not going to show the most famous artworks there because you can search and see them on google. I'm gonna show some pieces of art that are less famous but look confusing to me (maybe you can explain the meanings of them to me).

I don't remember the title of this painting or the name of the painter. What's the name at the bottom right corner? I can't recognise the name. I can only see birds and the moon in this painting. Is the black, banana-shaped thing the moon? I'm not even sure about that. But I'm sure it's grinning in a mysterious way, and the black bird is looking calmly at it. I've no idea what the painter is expressing.

Still, I don't know the title or the painter of this painting. However, I find it imposing. I guess at the centre of the painting is a person's face. Apparently, this person is in sorrow. The colourful, irregular-shaped stuff around the face is probably the strong emotion expressed by this person.

This artwork was made by Salvador Dali. I'm not sure what it means, but I guess Dali wanted to express something about high heels.

I don't remember the name of the painter, either, but I'm sure the painter hated Hitler very much.

This artwork is actually moving. All the three sticks are spinning at a moderate speed. If you're familiar with machine-like modern artworks, you must have recognized which artist made this work. Yes, it was Tinguely.

Above are all the pictures I wanna show you. As for the temporary exhibitions, I've never visited any, so I don't know what was inside.

Tips for visitors to Pompidou: On the first Sunday of each month, Pompidou's permanent exhibition is open for free. But on this day of each month, there's always a long queue. The permanent exhibition is closed at 9pm, but the entrance is closed at 8pm. One hour will not be enough to finish seeing all things in the permanent exhibition if you're really into modern art, so spare some more time if you need.

Paris is an icon for the Modern Age, completely rebuilt in the 19th century, the city represents the european industrialization and the rise of the bourgeoisie, with its small buildings with sloping roofs and chimneys, big windows and completely aligned streets. It is a very charming city, indeed.

The city also has elements of the Middle Age in its old churches like Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle and more. But where is the Contemporary Age in Paris then? Is it a city that stopped in the 19th and 20th century?

In terms of architecture in the center of the city, not much has changed, it's true. Except for the La Defense neighbourhood with its big cosmopolitan buildings, it doesn't look like you'll find contemporary art in Paris.

But that's an illusion. One of the most important museums of the city is Centre Pompidou, a place that keeps many art pieces from 1940 to nowadays. You'll find names like Mondrian, Duchamp and many other contemporary artists there, that you definetly won't find at Musee du Louvre or D'Orsay, the other two most important museums of the city.

Pompidou X Other museums

Art in Paris is divided between three museums. In Louvre, the biggest and most famous one, you'll find art and historic registers from the Ancient Age (greece, rome etc), going through Middle Age and Renaissance (where Monalisa is) until the 19th century. In D'Orsay there are pieces from the 19th century until 1950's, with artists such as Van Gogh and Rodin. At last, but not least, in Centre Pompidou you'll find art pieces with no more than 80 years old.

Another great difference between the other museums and Pompidou is the buildings. Louvre used to be a royal castle, so it has Middle Age - Renaissance architecture. D'Orsay used to be a train station, and it's architecture is from the 18th and 19th centrury, when countries in Europe started to get industrial.

Centre Pompidou is like no other. Unlike other buildings in Paris, it was constructed in the middle of the 20th century to be a contemporary art centre. It looks like a big machine of the new age industrial era. With stairs inside tunnels and glass walls, it is totally different from its surroundins and it stands out.

Inside Pompidou

Besides it's architecture, the museum is very unique on the inside as well. The main exposition is divided in two floors - the first one has modern art pieces from the 1940's to 1970's and the second one has paintings, sculptures and interventions from then on.

Inside the many rooms of the museum you'll see all types of art, from paintings to music, from videos to concrete poetry. There are even some that combine more than one piece in them. Really intresting.

Another great thing about the Centre is its view to the city. You can visit the balcony and see Paris from the Eiffel Tower to Sacre Coeur church. Amazing!

Also, there are temporary exhibitions in the museum dedicated to contemporary artists, and even movie exhibitions.

Visitations

Since there is a lot to see the visit in Centre Pompidou can take a hole afternoon, but if you choose to see only the main exposition, 2 hours should be enough.

To visit the exhibitions you need to buy tickets. The temporary ones have different prices if you choose to vist them separately, but if you wish to visit the whole museum it costs 14 euros - but people under 25 years old who are studying or living in the European Union don't need to pay.

You can also visit only the balcony with a view to Paris for 5 euros, but I don't think that's worth it because there are other places from where you can see the city for free and the most important thing about Pompidou is the art inside of it. So don't miss it!

Location

The museum is located in le Marais, a very cheered up neighbourhood, with many cafes and bars. I reccomend walking around, entering in a boulangerie or having a falafel before or aftere visiting Pompidou.

It is also very acessible. Really next to many subway stations such as Rambuteau (line 11), Hôtel de Ville (line 1 and eleven) and Chatelet (line 1, 4, 7, 11, 14). So it is easy to get to and a great place to visit - you have no excuse not to visit it! It is a must see in Paris, I guarantee!

The outside appearence of the building

In my last day in Paris I've got to visit Centre Pompidou, a complex building that includes a place of interest for me: the largest museum for modern art in Europe, and also one of the most visited namely, Musée National d'Art Moderne.

After I left behind Musée de l'Orangerie I've started walking towards the Beaubourg area, in the 4th arrondissment of Paris.

I didn't knew from before how the construction that I was looking for looks like and when I got in front of it I was quite impressed by its industrial like aspect.

Photo: Outside the Center

In front of my eyes there was this very huge weird construction whose structural and functional elements were out, not hidden at a lot from the visitors, but colored in a way that gives a strange beauty to the main facade.

Later I found out that this type of building is called 'inside-out' in architectural history and that's why I could see the pipes, the ducts, the electrical wires or the escalators. Speaking of that, when I saw people going up or down with the escalators I couldn't wait to be there too.

The arhitectural style in which the construction was designed is known as high-tech arhitecture.

Photos: Inside the museum

What is happening inside Centre Pompidou?

As I mentioned in the begining, Centre Pompidou is a complex building which it houses 3 important and cultural and scientific spaces:

• Bibliothèque publique d'information (Public Information Library)

• Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics (a centre for musical research)

• Musée National d'Art Moderne

But, I only got to be inside The National Museum of Modern Art and I can talk only about what I got to see here.

The National Museum of Modern Art, what is there to see?

In the museum I admired artworks from the 20th and 21th centuries worked in a variety of mediums such as plastic arts, photography, cinema, film, video, design, sculpture and even arhitecture.

The 4th level is dedicated to the contemporary collections starting with the year of 1960. Here, you can see works belonging to:

• Joseph Beuys

• Bruce Nauman

• Bertrand Lavier

• Louise Bourgeois

• Gerhard Richter

The 5th level displays the modern collections begining with the year of 1905. Among the artists name you can find:

• Henri Matisse

• Pablo Picasso

• Vassily Kandinsky

• Constantin Brancusi

• Alberto Giacometti

• Piet Mondrian

On the 6th floor there was a temporary exhibition called Prehistory: A modern enigma which will be on display until 16 september 2019.

On the other hand, likewise every museum today, here you can enjoy a cup of coffee in the Cafeteria or buy same small souvenirs from the museum's shop.

How much does it cost to visit?

If you are under 26 years old, then you are lucky and privileged to visit the contemporary and modern collections for free, if not then you have to pay 12 euros.

The schedule

A very good thing about this museum are the opening hours. For example, if you go there in the afternoon you don't have to be afraid that you will not have enough time to see everything because it will be closed at 18:00 or 19:00 as most museum do because Centre Pompidou closes late in the evening at 21:00 and on Thursday even later at 23:00.

You need to know that the Centre is closed on Tuesdays.

My experience

My small journey through the museum started on the last floor because the first thing I wanted to do since I saw the exterior of the museum was to go up and see the landscape over Paris.

Photos: View from the top of the Center.

I took the exterior escalators and admired Paris from up. It was so beautiful and interesting to see the city from a diffrent point of view. I realised how large and stretched out the french capital is. And very white with small spots of red, brown and green. I stayed here a bit, to look over everything and to take photos.

This museum offered me the opportunity to see, experience and feel works belonging to some of my favorite artists like Max Ernst, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Giorgio de Chirico, Kandinsky, Joan Miro, Louise Bourgeois and, of course, Constantin Brâncuși whose works delighted me knowing that a romanian artist is very appreciate and respected into the big art world.

Photos: Max Ernst's art

Photos: Giorgio de Chirico's The Melancholy of Departure

Photo: Colorful Ensemble by Kandinski

Photo: Woman surrounded by a bird's flight, by Joan Miro

Photo: Art by Piet Mondrian

Talking about Brâncuși, I find important to mention that in front of Centre Pompidou and belonging to it is a small museum called Atelier Brâncuși where you can see many sculptures worked by the romanian artist. If you plan to visit Centre Pompidou I recommend you to enter and see this small studio too. You will get a deeper view in how the artist was creating and developing his pieces. It's all worth it!

At the same time I got to discover new artists and their work that I knew less or nothing about. For example, Giuseppe Penone's room filled from top to bottom with dry leaves in cages got me into many feelings and thoughs. As well, Jean Dubuffet's room was interesting to explore.