2. Centre of Pompidou
Background
Architect: Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Francine
Type : Culture and Leisure
Architectural style : Postmodern / High-Tech
Location: Paris, France
Structural Engineer: Arup Area:
Land area：5 acres
Floor Area：103,305㎡
Project Year: 1971-1977
3. Concept
The initial intention was to create much more than a museum; rather, Renzo Piano and
Richard Rogers sought to create a cultural icon. Their competition entry was the only to
propose using half of the available land on-site.
Located in the building are an Industrial Creative Center, Public Library, Modern Art
Museum, and Center for Music & Acoustic Research
The skeleton itself turns the building inside-out, color coding the different mechanical,
circulatory and structural systems. Rogers and Piano also intended for the space to be
flexible, with large spans unimpeded by columns.
The notion of flexibility is extended to every component of the building; the Centre was
to act as ‘an ever-changing framework, a Meccano kit, a climbing frame for the old and
the young’. Conceived as a well-serviced shed, the building contains a series of uniform
spaces supported externally by a free-standing structural frame, the whole capable of
change in plan, section and elevation, able to absorb the unforeseen requirements of
the future.
4. Design
The design expresses the belief that buildings should be able to change to
allow people the freedom to adjust their environment as they need.
In addition, the order, grain and scale should be derived from the process of
making the building so that each individual element is expressed within the
whole. As a result, the building becomes a true expression of its purpose.
The key elements of the competition scheme remained intact as the building
progressed into the developed design stage, although the interactive
information façade, which was conceived as an information wall for use by the
Pompidou as well as other external institutions, and the open ground floor
were dropped. The building was to have had no main entrance in the
traditional manner, rather a permeable ground floor where entrance to all
parts of the building could be made. However, the fundamental arrangement
of the building and its relationship with the city remained as the architects
intended.
The entrance to the building is at the level of the street and the piazza and
relates to the life of both. Alternative access is via the lifts, escalators and
staircases attached to the west façade. Each of the five major floors are
uninterrupted by structure, services or circulation.
5. These huge, open, loft-like spaces are serviced both from above, and from the
raised floor for maximum flexibility in layout. The corridors, ducts, fire stairs,
escalators, lifts, columns and bracing which would ordinarily interrupt the
floors are exposed on the exterior.
Movement is celebrated throughout the building, and expressed overtly in the
great diagonal stair that runs up its outside and affords spectacular views over
Paris. The transparency of the façade, the galleries and especially the
escalators snaking their way up the side of the building combine to reveal two
captivating sights: the tiled roofs and medieval grain of Paris in one direction,
and the revelation of the building – a flexible, functional, transparent, inside-
out mechanism – in the other.
Construction
The realization of the project was a model for interdisciplinary teamwork and
was undertaken via a series of independent teams – substructure,
superstructure, services, façades, interiors, systems and the piazza – each
under the guidance of a team leader, while overall coordination of the project
was undertaken by Bernard Plattner.
Ove Arup & Partners led by the great engineer Peter Rice, who had been
involved in the project from the beginning, developed the structural concept
for the façades, with a system that hinged on six elegantly tapered, cast-steel
rocker beams known as ferberites.
The main structure – a permanent steel grid – provides a stable framework
into which the moveable parts, including walls and floors, can be inserted,
6. THEMES OF THE DESIGN
• Flexible envelope
• Steel structure
• Simple geometric form
• Exterior mechanical
• Open piazza
• Building circulation
It is a building in two parts:
1 Three levels of infrastructure where they
gather technical facilities and service,
2 A large glass and steel superstructure of
seven levels, including the terrace and the
mezzanine, which concentrates most sectors
of activity of the
The different systems on the exterior of the
building are painted different colors to
distinguish their different roles
• The structure and largest ventilation
components were painted white,
• stairs and elevator structures were
painted a silver gray,
• ventilation was painted blue,
• plumbing and fire control piping
painted green,
7. dismantled and re-positioned as necessary. The components and connections
are of a scale rarely seen in the construction industry – massive steel
elements were fabricated in off-site foundries and delivered by truck to the site
during the night.
The six-story superstructure consists of thirteen bays and was constructed of
16,000 tons of cast and prefabricated steel with reinforced concrete floor
sections. The two main structural support planes comprise a series of 800-
millimetre- (31.5-inch-) diameter, spun-steel, hollow columns, each of which
supports six ferberites, or brackets.
One end of each ferberite is connected to an outer tension column, while the
other supports a steel lattice beam. The stability of the building is achieved
through diagonal bracing in the long façades and by stabilized end frames.
The cladding is a curtain wall of steel and glass, mixing glazed and solid metal
panels hung from the floor above to keep them structurally separate from the
façades, and therefore easily changed. The line of the cladding is kept back
from the edge of the building, allowing plenty of space for human interaction,
while lending the building an open and transparent appearance.
Color-Coded Systems
Large HVAC components = white
Circulatory elements (stairs and elevators) = red
Climate Control = blue
Plumbing = green
Building Layout
8. Basement -1
1. Studio 13/16
2. Main Forum
3. Ticket Shows
4. Cinema 2
5. Small Exhibition Hall
6. Large Exhibition Hal
Basement 0
1. Reception and Information Desk
2. Forum
3. RMN Shop Pompidou Centre
4. Ticketing and Sales
5. Cloakrooms
6. Multimedia Guides Rentals
7. Library
Floor 1
1. BPI (reference room,
dressing room for the
visually impaired)
2. Cinema 1
3. Children's Gallery
4. Coffee, "Mezzanine"
9. 5. Space 315
6. South Gallery
Floor 2
1. General Fund
2. Study Space
3. Television of the World
4. Press Room
5. Cafeteria
Floor 3
1. Space Electrical Equipment
2. General Fund
3. Kandinsky Library and
Graphic Design Studio
Floor4
1. Museum, Contemporary Collection
2. New Media and Movie Space
3. Fair Visitors
4. Gallery Museum
5. Gallery of Graphic Arts
6. Shop
7. Bookstore
10. Floor 5
1. Museum, Modern Collection
2. North Terrace
3. West Terrace
4. South Terrace
Floor 6
1. Gallery 1
2. Gallery 2
3. Gallery 3
4. Restaurant,
“The George”
5. Bookstore
Materials
Hollow steel columns
Hollow steel/solid steel
welded trusses
Steel gerberettes
Composite decking
Concrete
basement/foundation
11. Main Structural System
The overall vision was to create a large building that appeared to be inside out.
This required that the building, from the facade in, be uninterrupted by columns, walls,
stairs etc.
In order to satisfy this requirement the architects and the engineers had to get creative.
The building uses a repetitive steel bay system, repeated 6 times vertically,
with high floor to ceiling heights to create space for the deep beams it
takes to span the entire building width.
Each of the 13 bays consists of a truss, supported by columns on both sides.
To stabilize each bay on both sides, gerberettes were used.
Gerberettes are small cantilevered
pivoting beams that allow the tie
rods and the columns to share the
vertical load.
Where the gerberette meets the
column is now the fulcrum point of
the cantilever, causing the tie rods
to be in tension while the column
stays in compression
http://boutique.arte.tv/f301 -
12. Load Transfer
Diagram
Trusses transfer the gravity load
to
columns through the large
gerberette
pinned connections. However,
the pinned connection with
simply the truss, gerberette and
column is inherently unstable. As
a result, an additional tie rod is
attached from the end of
the gerberettes to the ground.
Gerberettes
These cantilevered arms connect to the steel columns
Each one gerberette weighs 9.6 tons
Ensures that the load from the 6 floors is transferred down to the
foundation and into the load bearing columns
Prevents from a bending moment
Columns
The Column grid creates 13 identical
baysThe interior of these bays are free of
any columns
Each column starts at 85mm at the
bottom and tapers to 40mm at the top
These columns are also filled with water
for fire prevention
13. Lateral Resisting System
Circular, bolted members are used to connect the
steel tension members which form the lateral
stabilizing system. A plate is then fastened to the
outside in order to conceal the bolted connection.
For the walkway support, a donut-shaped steel
plate is used. The circular shape provides ample
surface for a bolted connection from multiple
angles. However, cotter pins secure the bolts
rather than nuts in this lateral stabilizing element
This detail shows some of the struts that attach
the underside of the truss to the floor below. Here
a pin connection is used at the end of a hollow
structural member. The truss itself is comprised of
smaller round members (some solid and some
hollow) that have been fully welded for clean
looking detailing.
These connections are for
the truss that is used for
the lateral bracing most
everything is made from
hollow steel tubes
