Thursday, October 30th

Notre Dame Cathedral
Saint Chapelle
Pantheon
Arab Headquarters: Jean Nouvel
Pompidou Center: Renzo Piano and Norman Foster
National Library of France
Frank Gehry Cinematheque

This day was rainy and was very cold. The Pompidou Center was my favorite. It is a brutal Deconstructionist piece of architecture. The idea was to push all the functions of a building to the exterior. This is why the HVAC, egress, and structure are all on the façade. The great thing about this is it frees up the interior space by not needing any interior columns. It is a pretty clever building and I enjoyed staring at it and wondering why a city that hinged tightly to its history would allow an architect to do this. I was glad they did. But every non-architect, I would bet, thinks this is a terrible building.

A French person told us that if we go around the back, we can get in for free. This building is used as a public library (3 floors) and a contemporary art museum (top 2 floors). So, Matt and I went around the back and acted like we were French and got in for free to the library portion. The place was packed with people reading, writing, and using the computers.