Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

_{25. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (1977); architects: Renzo Piano (born 1937) and Richard Rogers (born 1933). The Centre Pompidou is a cultural complex housing libraries, galleries, and related facilities. It was introduced into a rundown area of central Paris (Beaubourg) and had the effect of reviving the area’s fortunes as it became a fashionable place to visit. It defies the tendency of this type of building to become monumental, by seeming to be no more than a scaffolding to hold the various lively activities in place. In the early stages of the design, almost everything about it was moveable — even the floors — but in the event that proved to be too expensive an idea to realize. In summer there are usually crowds outside, watching street entertainers in the plaza in front of the building, and a constant stream of visitors going up the escalators, prominent on the main façade, that bring expansive views across Paris into sight as one ascends.}

What we experience when we encounter buildings is felt spontaneously, but it is filtered through the culture that we have acquired on our journey to that encounter, and we will have acquired some of that culture deliberately, some of it by chance. The parts that we acquire by chance will be the things that we pick up from the culture that surrounds us, and so will be the result of accidents of birth, and the circles in which we move. This is the culture in which most of us feel most at home most of the time, and in which we live our everyday lives. The most important aspect of the things we encounter in this way is their familiarity. There is room for a little novelty now and again, so that we are not faced with unrelieved tedium, but the familiarity of our surroundings is as reassuring as the predictable attitudes of our friends. We start to worry if someone we think we know well starts to behave in unexpected ways.

Educated tastes