Once outrageous, Pompidou Center in Paris turns 30 and wildly popular

PARIS — When the Georges Pompidou Center opened in 1977, critics complained that the museum's futuristic exoskeleton of brightly painted pipes was a blight on Paris.

Thirty years later, the cultural center is one of the city's most recognizable monuments. It houses Europe's largest collection of modern and contemporary art, and it is even working on plans to open an outpost in China.

The Pompidou Center marked its 30th anniversary Wednesday with a visit by President Jacques Chirac, who said the multidisciplinary arts center's debut was a "thunderbolt" for the international art scene.

"All the world was watching Paris," he said in a speech. "Here, in the historic heart of the capital, something new, unprecedented and sensational happened."

With more than 5 million visitors last year, the Pompidou Center is France's second-most visited museum after the Louvre. The center is building a branch in the northern French city of Metz, and discussions are taking place to create another in Shanghai, China.

The Shanghai project — along with another proposal to create a mini-Louvre in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates — has caused a stir in France's art world, with an online petition gathering more than 4,000 signatures of protest. Critics fear that such projects will put France's museums under strain, and they complain that politicians are hijacking art for strategic and economic ends.

Chirac addressed those concerns in his speech, saying that the Pompidou Center's spread to Asia will be "fundamental."

"Putting an outpost in that part of the world, and preferably in China — a major power that has the vocation to become a major pole for artistic creation — will allow the center to develop irreplaceable skills to encourage more vibrant exchanges with that part of the world," Chirac said, adding that the center needs to think about partnerships with Russia, India, Africa and South America.

Successive French presidents have sought to put their stamp on Paris, and the Pompidou Center was the brainchild of Georges Pompidou, president from 1969 until his death in 1974. He envisioned a center that would celebrate arts from cinema to theater and music to painting. The building also houses a library and a center for music research.

The center — a six-level building made of steel and glass and designed by the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers — became so popular that the structure literally wore out. Designed to handle 5,000 visitors daily, it drew more than 25,000 a day. It underwent massive renovations from 1997 through 1999 and reopened in January 2000. Over 30 years, 180 million people have visited.