* Structural, movement, and servicing zones share physical space in the external wall frames.
* Underground parking and utility areas helped create a large urban plaza.
• Structural and service systems are the dominant visual features.
• Site, terrace, and circulation systems maximize views of the city.
• Flexibility is attained by the structural scheme and the inside-out servicing of the building.
• Isolating the escalator tube from the floor plates provides for security and alternate accessibility to the restaurant.
Turning the building inside out was the most successfully realized architectural intention. The wall frames, with their captured servicing and movement systems, are unavoidably read as the corpus of the building. Static monumentalism is out; dynamic servicing and flexible floor space is in. The envelope hardly exists as a statement of the architecture, except in its transparency. Extensive and strict fire safety requirements mitigated many of the architectural ambitions related to these concepts, such as the transparency of the east wall and the fireproofing of structural members, but the intention is realized nonetheless. The inside-out aspects of the building truly failed only when it came to cleaning and maintenance of the painted finishes. It is interesting in this regard to note the differences between Pompidou and Richard Rogers’s next major project, Lloyd’s of London.
The plaza is another successfully realized architectural intention in terms of its integration with the west facade and the pedestrian neighborhood. This is a significant accomplishment of the project and an important part of how its incongruent features meld into the urban fabric surrounding it. Without the plaza, the building might not work at all.
Failure of nerve by the client effectively prevented the main architectural intention from being seriously attempted. The live center of information may be realized as part of the cultural center’s activities, but the idea of the building as a flashing, shining, continuous information medium was abandoned. Perhaps this idea will resurface at a world’s fair sometime soon.