The newly opened Centre Pompidou-Metz designed by Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines.
Today the Centre Pompidou-Metz opened with “Masterpieces?”. The inaugural show pulls from the Musee National d’art Moderne collection (with 65,000 works, making it Europe’s largest collection of contemporary and modern art). The exhibition relooks at the notion of “masterpiece” in four stages: Masterpieces throughout History, Stories behind Masterpieces, Masterpiece Dreams, and Masterpieces ad infinitum. Works by Picasso, Joan Miro, Giorgio De Chirico, Francis Picabia, Louise Bourgeois, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein, Andreas Gursky, and Jean Prouve are included among the many masterpieces on view through October 25, 2010.
The Centre Pompidou-Metz was designed by architects Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines. Said the architects of the project, “Walking down the front square and through the gardens that link the downtown area and the Metz train station to the Centre Pompidou-Metz, visitors will discover a building in light and luminous tones, both powerful and graceful, inviting them to take shelter under its protective roof. We wanted the architecture to convey a sense of well-being, openness and multi-cultural mix that has a direct sensory relationship with its surroundings.” It includes over 16,000 square feet of exhibition space, a 196-seat studio theater for performances, a 144-seat auditorium for films, a café-restaurant and bookstore.
