Centre Pompidou
Le défi du Total Design (FR edition)

Centre Pompidou
La sfida del Total Design (IT edition)

The history of the creation and construction of the Centre Pompidou, designed and built between 1971 and 1977 by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, alongside the engineers of Ove Arup & Partners, under the leadership of President Georges Pompidou.

In the mid-1970s, in the heart of Paris, a work took shape that crystallized the dream of an era: that of uniting the disciplines of architecture, engineering, industry, aeronautics, programming, and computer science to transfigure a building into a highly technological and interactive machine—intrinsically mobile and flexible—at the service of the public. This is the Centre Pompidou.

By utilizing archival documents and previously unpublished interviews, it is now possible to reconstruct the genesis and development of its fundamental components. Tracing the evolution of these elements provides the key to understanding this holistic approach to design known as “Total Design.” At the same time, it offers an opportunity to examine one of the most compelling, complex, and in some respects, problematic attempts to realize the modernist dream of a building transformed into a machine, in the wake of technomorphic architecture.

Authors: Boris Hamzeian
Publisher: ‎PU Saint Etienn (French Version) / Letteraventidue (Italian Version)
Dimensions: 19,4 x 2 x 23,3 cm
Publication year: 2025 (French Version) / 2023 (Italian Version)
Number of pages: 272 (French Version) / 264 (Italian Version)
ISBN: 978-2862727912 (French Version)
ISBN: 9788862428767 (Italian Version)