traveldk.com

One of the building’s most striking and popular features is the external escalator, which climbs, snake-like, up the front of the centre in its plexi-glass tube. The view gets better and better as you rise high above the activity in the Centre’s forecourt, before arriving at the top for the best view of all.

The view from the top of the Pompidou Centre is spectacular. The Eiffel Tower is visible, as is Montmartre in the north and the Tour Montparnasse to the south. On clear days views can stretch as far as La Défense.

Visitors and locals gather in the open space in front of the Centre, especially on sunny days, to enjoy the variety of street performers, ranging from enigmatic mime artistes to the extrovert dazzle of fire-eaters.

This colourful fountain in Place Igor Stravinsky was designed by Niki de Saint-Phalle and Jean Tinguely as part of the Pompidou Centre development. Inspired by composer Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird (1910), the bird spins and sprays water!

Part of the shock factor of the Pompidou Centre is that the utility pipes are outside the building. Not only that, they are vividly coloured: bright green for water, yellow for electricity and blue for air-conditioning.

The ground-floor bookshop sells a range of postcards, posters of major works in the Modern Art Museum and books on artists associated with Paris.

The studio of revolutionary Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957) is to the north of the centre, displaying his abstract works.

Within the Modern Art Museum, this 1914 work by artist Georges Braque (1882–1963) is one of the most striking of the Cubist Movement.

French artist Matisse (1869–1964) was one of the proponents of the Fauvist Movement, noted for its bold use of colour. This collage was created in 1952.

Joan Miró (1893–1983) was born in Barcelona but moved to Paris in 1920. His three vast canvases known as Bleus (Blues ) are hung together, demanding attention for their apparent simplicity.