The Pompidou Centre, opened in 1977, is to be closed in 2023 for four years of renovation work. Your report on this (26 January) says that the building’s radical design, “with its inner workings on the outside”, was and remains controversial, with Parisians who hate it telling visitors that the “best view of the city can be had from its rooftop terrace not because you can see the [city’s] landmarks, but because you cannot see the Pompidou Centre”.
The claim by a French historian, Louis Chevalier, asserted in 1977 and elaborated in 1994, that Paris has been “assassinated” by modern architects, presidents and planners might be an exaggeration, but the in-need-of-rehabilitation Pompidou Centre speaks at least to its mutilation.
An article in the New York Times in 2008 reported that some critics of the 210m-high Montparnasse Tower (erected in 1973, and the tallest skyscraper in Paris until 2011) claimed its observation deck provided the most beautiful view of Paris because it was the only place from which the tower itself could not be seen.
That in turn was echoing the possibly apocryphal but credible and renowned story of Guy de Maupassant’s admission that he lunched often at a restaurant high in the 1889 Eiffel Tower because “it’s the only place in Paris where I don’t have to see it”. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Dr Alan Baker
Cambridge
