Centre Georges Pompidou

A building turned inside out became one of Paris’s most recognisable landmarks. The Centre Georges Pompidou, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, opened in 1977 with its colourful pipes, ducts and escalators deliberately placed on the exterior. Inside, the Musée National d’Art Moderne holds one of Europe’s largest collections of modern and contemporary art, with works by Picasso, Kandinsky, Matisse, Duchamp and many others. Painting and sculpture sit alongside photography, design, architecture and new media, tracing the development of modern art from the early 20th century to the present. The building itself became part of that story.