Centre Pompidou-Metz facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Centre Pompidou-Metz |
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Centre Pompidou-Metz in August 2011
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| General information | |
| Type | Culture and leisure |
| Location | Metz, France |
| Coordinates | 49°6′29″N 6°10′48″E / 49.10806°N 6.18000°E |
| Construction started | 7 November 2006 |
| Inaugurated | 12 May 2010 |
| Cost | 69.33 million Euros |
| Landlord | Metz city |
| Height | 77 m (253 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor area | 10,660 m2 (114,700 sq ft) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Shigeru Ban |
| Architecture firm | Shigeru Ban Architects Europe |
| Main contractor | Metz Métropole |
| Renovating team | |
| Renovating firm | Demathieu & Bard |
The Centre Pompidou-Metz is a cool museum in Metz, France. It shows off modern and contemporary art. Think of it as a branch of the famous Pompidou arts centre in Paris.
This museum displays amazing art from the French National Museum of Modern Art. This collection is the biggest in Europe for art from the 20th and 21st centuries. The Centre Pompidou-Metz has a huge space for temporary exhibitions. It has 5,000 square meters spread across three galleries, a theatre, and an auditorium.
The building was designed by a Japanese architect named Shigeru Ban. Construction started on November 7, 2006. The museum officially opened on May 12, 2010, with the French President Nicolas Sarkozy there. The roof of the building is very special. It's one of the largest and most complex roofs ever built. Its design was inspired by a Chinese hat that Shigeru Ban found in Paris. Since it opened, the museum has become one of the most visited cultural spots in France outside of Paris.
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Awesome Architecture and Design
The Centre Pompidou-Metz looks like a big hexagon. It has a tall spire in the middle that reaches 77 meters high. This height is a nod to the year 1977, when the original Centre Pompidou in Paris first opened.
The museum has three rectangular galleries. These galleries weave through the building at different levels. They even stick out through the roof! These parts have huge windows that point towards famous landmarks in Metz. You can see the Saint-Stephen Gothic cathedral and the Imperial railway station. You might also spot the Arsenal Concert Hall and the Arènes indoor sport arena. The main hall is 1,200 square meters. It's super flexible for showing large artworks. The ceiling here goes from 5.7 meters up to 18 meters high.
The Amazing Roof
The roof is the most incredible part of the building. It's a 90-meter-wide hexagon, just like the building's shape. The roof covers 8,000 square meters. It's made from 16 kilometers of special glued wood. These wooden pieces cross each other to form hexagonal patterns. It looks like the woven pattern of a Chinese hat.
The roof isn't flat; it has cool curves and counter-curves all over. This is especially true above the three exhibition galleries. To protect the wood, the entire structure is covered with a white fabric. This fabric is made of fiberglass and a special coating called teflon. Teflon is self-cleaning, which is pretty neat! It also protects the building from direct sunlight. At night, you can see through it, which looks really cool. You can even see the roof from above in a movie called Metz from above. This movie was made by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
Gardens and Surroundings
The Centre Pompidou-Metz also has a restaurant terrace. The inside of the restaurant was designed to look like a kaleidoscope. The garden around the museum was designed using ideas of sustainable gardening. This means it's good for the environment.
The museum is a key part of a new area in Metz called the Amphitheater District. This area is 50 hectares big and is still being built. It will have a convention center and a shopping mall. The district already includes the Seille park and the Arènes indoor sport arena. The whole project is expected to be finished by 2016. Even the street signs in Metz were designed by a Swiss artist named Ruedi Baur.
The Centre Pompidou-Metz and its front area, called Human Rights square, are built on an old Roman amphitheatre site. This was part of the ancient city of Divodurum Medriomaticum, which is now Metz. It's also close to the Metz Imperial District and the Station Palace.
Exhibitions and Shows
The Centre Pompidou-Metz usually hosts about 3 to 4 special temporary exhibitions each year. These shows are unique and you won't see them anywhere else. Most of the art comes from the huge collection of the National Museum of Modern Art. This museum has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe. The Centre Pompidou-Metz also works with other museums. These include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Luxembourgian Museum of Modern Art.
The museum also supports local artists from the Regional Contemporary Art Fund of Lorraine. Besides the temporary art shows, the Centre Pompidou-Metz has live performances in its theater. They also hold meetings and talks in their auditorium. Famous artists from around the world and local artists come to these events.
Sometimes, the museum building itself or the city of Metz becomes part of the art! For example, the building's structure was used for a visual art project by French artists. Also, Yann Arthus-Bertrand took amazing aerial photos of Metz and the museum for an exhibition called Views from above.
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Pablo Picasso, Parade, 1917, a curtain displayed in May 2012 during the exhibition 1917.
Past Exhibitions
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Getting to the Museum
The Centre Pompidou-Metz is right in the middle of Metz. You can get there easily using the local public transport called Mettis. The museum is also close to the Imperial railway station of Metz. This station is connected to France's high-speed train network, the TGV.
You can take a direct high-speed train from Paris and the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. The trip from Paris East station to Metz is about 82 minutes. From the airport, it's about 75 minutes. Metz is also located where two major highways meet. These are the A4 motorway (from Paris to Strasbourg) and the A31 motorway (north-south).
Beacons Exhibition
The "Beacons" exhibition is a special, long-running show at the museum. It features 18 amazing artworks from the French National Museum of Modern Art. These pieces are usually too big to be shown often. This exhibition gives you a great look at the main art movements since the early 1900s. You can see works by artists like Pablo Picasso, Anish Kapoor, Sam Francis, and Joan Miró.
Some of the artworks you might see include:
- Figures and Birds in the Night, by Joan Miró
- Survivors, by Yan Pei-Ming
- Homogenous Infiltration for Piano, by Joseph Beuys
- Reflexions of a Waterfall I, by Louise Nevelson
- Tabula, by Simon Hantaï
- Entrance to the Railway Pavilion, by Robert Delaunay
- Stage curtain for the ballet Mercure, by Pablo Picasso
- Composition with Two Parrots, by Fernand Léger
- Orangey, Light Blue Forms, by Claude Viallat
- Palombe, by Frank Stella
- Painting 202 x 453 cm, 29 June 1979, by Pierre Soulages
- Aware II, 28.3.1961, by Jean Degottex
- Lost World, by Pierre Alechinsky
- In Lovely Blueness, by Sam Francis
- For a Little While, by Joan Mitchell
- Untitled, by Anish Kapoor
- Untitled (to Donna) 5a, by Dan Flavin
- Untitled, by Robert Irwin
First Exhibition: Masterpieces?
The very first exhibition at the museum was called Masterpieces?. It showed about 800 masterpieces, with over 700 of them borrowed from the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. This exhibition made people think about what makes something a "masterpiece." It ran until January 17, 2011. Over 800,000 people visited this exhibition in its first year!
Some of the famous artworks shown included:
- Woman with a Guitar, by Georges Braque
- King's Sadness, by Henri Matisse
- The Aubade, Lying Nude near Musician, by Pablo Picasso
- Guernica, by Pablo Picasso
- Ingres's Violin, a photograph by Man Ray
- Black cross, by Kasimir Malevitch
- Blue I, Blue II, Blue III triptych, by Joan Miró
- Reliefs for the Stairs of the Railway Palace, by Robert Delaunay
- Capricorn, by Max Ernst
- The Background, by Jackson Pollock
- Standing Woman, by Alberto Giacometti
- Sleeping Muse, by Constantin Brâncuși
- The Tropical House, by Jean Prouvé
The exhibition was divided into four parts:
- Great nave: Masterpieces throughout history
- Gallery 1: Stories behind masterpieces
- Gallery 2: Masterpiece dreams
- Gallery 3: Masterpieces ad infinitum
See also
In Spanish: Centre Pompidou-Metz para niños
