Kungsträdgården
Kungsträdgården is a park in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is colloquially known as Kungsan; the park's central location and its outdoor cafés makes it one of the most popular hangouts and meeting places in Stockholm. It hosts open-air concerts and events in summer, while offering an ice rink during winters. There is a number of cafés, art galleries and restaurants; the park is divided into four distinct spaces: Square of Charles XII. The park is administered and events in it organized by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. A number of Stockholm landmarks are found around the perimeter of Kungsträdgården: South of the park is the quay Strömgatan interconnecting the bridges Strömbron and Norrbro, both of which stretches over to the Stockholm Old Town and the Royal Palace. North of the park is Hamngatan with the department stores PK-huset and Nordiska Kompaniet facing the park. Kungsträdgårdsgatan stretches along the park's eastern side. A series of prominent buildings are lined-up along it: Stockholm Synagogue by Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander, 1867–70.
Jernkontoret by Axel Kumlien, 1875. Palmeska huset by Helgo Zettervall, 1884–86, today the headquarters of Handelsbanken, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken the Kungsträdgården Stockholm metro station. On the western side are the Royal Swedish Opera with the Opera Bar, Saint James's church, Ivar Kreuger's Matchstick Palace designed by Ivar Tengbom, Sverigehuset designed by Sven Markelius, 1961–69. Though the royal kitchen garden is known to date back to the Middle Ages, it is first mentioned in historical records as konungens kålgård in 1430; the royal property in the area was enlarged through an acquisition in 1454 and further expanded throughout the following century. This utilitarian garden was transformed into an enclosed royal Baroque pleasure garden and accordingly referred to as "King's Garden" throughout the 17th and 18th centuries; the garden was a symmetrical composition centred on a fountain and separated from the waterfront by the Makalös Palace. However, the demolition of the walls began in the early 19th century, for the inauguration of the statue of Charles XIII in 1821, his successor Charles XIV John had most of the garden replaced by a gravelled open space ordered to be named "Square of Charles XIII".
When Makalös was destroyed by fire in 1825 the park was extended south down to the waterfront. Notwithstanding the area became had become a popular spot for bourgeois social life and military drilling, Charles XIV's initiative never was appreciated, in the 1860s the space was subsequently furnished with the tree-lined avenues still giving the park its character and through which the old name prevailed. In addition, the park's showpiece, the tall and elaborate Molin's Fountain, was cast in bronze and given a space in the park; the following century saw several proposals to have the northern section of the park replaced by various buildings, but during WWII a contract determined the area should remain a park and in 1970 it became the property of the city. In the 1970s, construction of the metro station caused much controversy since the plans called for the old elms to be cut down, which led to violent protests and a tree-hugger campaign on May 12-May 13, 1971 with people chaining themselves to the trees, the so-called Battle of the Elms.
These protests not only saved the trees and caused the station entrances to be located east and west of the park, but they marked the end of a period when many old buildings in central Stockholm were demolished. The park had a reputation for rioting youth and drug dealing in the 1980s. Extreme-right demonstrations in the 1990s by the statue of Charles XII altered its reputation, it was redesigned in the late 1990s to it present shape. In 2004, 285 new linden trees were planted to replace the sick elms and new pavilions with cafés were added; the southern third of the park. Called Karl XII:s torg is centred on the statue of Charles XII by Johan Peter Molin, inaugurated for the 150th anniversary of the king's death on November 30, 1868; the square, until forming a section of the levelled park carrying the name of Charles XIII, was subsequently renamed after Charles XII and transformed into more of a park than a square. The park is centred on the statue of Charles XIII, King of Sweden from 1809 until his death in 1818, commissioned by his successor Charles XIV John.
The Neoclassicist composition of Gustaf Göthe, inaugurated in 1821, is escorted by four lions sculpted by Bengt Erland Fogelberg, added in 1824, each of which are holding a ball carrying the Norwegian and Swedish coat of arms alluding the Swedish-Norwegian Union initiated by the king. The anchor under the king's right arm reminds us of his great naval victories during the Russo-Swedish War 1788-1790. Now, Stockholmers were displeased with Charles XIII and therefore referred to the statue as "a gardener without a garden just as a king without honour" and, as Charles XII is surrounded by four backs from mortars, in Swedish called kruka and Charles XIII is flanked by four lions, again popular humour used the opportunity to throw some dirt at the latter by referring to both statues as "a lion among pots and a pot among lions". On the location for the statue of Charles XII was the palace Makalös, owned by the Constable of the Real
London
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans; the City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of the London Assembly. London is considered to be one of the world's most important global cities and has been termed the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for work, the most vegetarian friendly city in the world. London exerts a considerable impact upon the arts, education, fashion, healthcare, professional services and development, tourism and transportation.
London ranks 26 out of 300 major cities for economic performance. It is one of the largest financial centres and has either the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area GDP, it is the most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the busiest city airport system as measured by passenger traffic. It is the leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. London's universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted three modern Summer Olympic Games. London has a diverse range of people and cultures, more than 300 languages are spoken in the region, its estimated mid-2016 municipal population was 8,787,892, the most populous of any city in the European Union and accounting for 13.4% of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census.
The population within the London commuter belt is the most populous in the EU with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016. London was the world's most populous city from c. 1831 to 1925. London contains four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London. Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square and The Shard. London has numerous museums, galleries and sporting events; these include the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, British Library and West End theatres. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world. "London" is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD in the Latinised form Londinium. Over the years, the name has attracted many mythicising explanations; the earliest attested appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136. This had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had taken over the city and named it Kaerlud.
Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources Latin, Old English, Welsh, with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It is agreed; this was adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English, the ancestor-language of English. The toponymy of the Common Brythonic form is much debated. A prominent explanation was Richard Coates's 1998 argument that the name derived from pre-Celtic Old European *lowonida, meaning "river too wide to ford". Coates suggested that this was a name given to the part of the River Thames which flows through London. However, most work has accepted a Celtic origin for the name, recent studies have favoured an explanation along the lines of a Celtic derivative of a proto-Indo-European root *lendh-, combined with the Celtic suffix *-injo- or *-onjo-. Peter Schrijver has suggested, on these grounds, that the name meant'place that floods'; until 1889, the name "London" applied to the City of London, but since it has referred to the County of London and Greater London.
"London" is sometimes written informally as "LDN". In 1993, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south foreshore, upstream of Vauxhall Bridge; this bridge either reached a now lost island in it. Two of those timbers were radiocarbon dated to between 1750 BC and 1285 BC. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to between 4800 BC and 4500 BC, were found on the Thames's south foreshore, downstream of Vauxhall Bridge; the function of the mesolithic structure is not known. Both structures are on the south bank. Although there is evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans about four years after the invasion
Tram
A tram is a rail vehicle which runs on tramway tracks along public urban streets. The lines or networks operated by tramcars are called tramways; the term electric street railways was used in the United States. In the United States, the term tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tyred trackless trains, which are unrelated to other kinds of trams. Tram vehicles are lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Today, most trams use electrical power fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line. In some cases by a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets, diesel in more rural environments. Trams carry freight. Trams are now included in the wider term "light rail", which includes grade-separated systems; some trams, known as tram-trains, may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are indistinct, a given system may combine multiple features.
One of the advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Problems included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed and cared for day in and day out, produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with disposing of. Electric trams replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th century. Improvements in other forms of road transport such as buses led to decline of trams in mid 20th century. Trams have seen resurgence in recent years; the English terms tram and tramway are derived from the Scots word tram, referring to a type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran. The word tram derived from Middle Flemish trame; the identical word la trame with the meaning "crossbeam" is used in the French language. Etymologists believe that the word tram refers to the wooden beams the railway tracks were made of before the railroad pioneers switched to the much more wear-resistant tracks made of iron and steel.
The word Tram-car is attested from 1873. Although the terms tram and tramway have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English; the term streetcar is first recorded in 1840, referred to horsecars. When electrification came, Americans began to speak of trolleycars or trolleys. A held belief holds the word to derive from the troller, a four-wheeled device, dragged along dual overhead wires by a cable that connected the troller to the top of the car and collected electrical power from the overhead wires. "Trolley" and variants refer to the verb troll, meaning "roll" and derived from Old French, cognate uses of the word were well established for handcarts and horse drayage, as well as for nautical uses. The alternative North American term'trolley' may speaking be considered incorrect, as the term can be applied to cable cars, or conduit cars that instead draw power from an underground supply. Conventional diesel tourist buses decorated to look like streetcars are sometimes called trolleys in the US.
Furthering confusion, the term tram has instead been applied to open-sided, low-speed segmented vehicles on rubber tires used to ferry tourists short distances, for example on the Universal Studios backlot tour and, in many countries, as tourist transport to major destinations. The term may apply to an aerial ropeway, e.g. the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Although the use of the term trolley for tram was not adopted in Europe, the term was associated with the trolleybus, a rubber-tyred vehicle running on hard pavement, which draws its power from pairs of overhead wires; these electric buses, which use twin trolley poles, are called trackless trolleys, or sometimes trolleys. The New South Wales, government has decided to use the term "light rail" for their trams; the history of trams, streetcars or trolley systems, began in early nineteenth century. It can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used; the world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, in Wales, UK.
The Mumbles Railway Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1804, horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service was restarted in 1860, again using horses, it was worked by steam from 1877, from 1929, by large electric tramcars, until closure in 1961. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, no street tramway would appear in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train. Street railways developed in America before Europe due to the poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses, which were common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harle
Peter Celsing
Peter Elof Herman Torsten Folke was a Swedish modernist architect. Celsing was born in Stockholm and was the son of bank executive Folke von Celsing and Margareta and brother of diplomat Lars von Celsing and the doctor Fredrik Celsing, he studied at the architectural school of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. Celsing has been the assistant of the known Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz. According to Adam Caruso, it was Celsing that helped Lewerentz to win the design competition for the St. Mark; this building and the St. Petri are now known as a startingpoint of Brutalism, he became professor of architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology. After working for some time in Beirut, he became head of the architectural office of AB Stockholms Spårvägar, the Stockholm tram and local railway authority, built a number of suburban metro stations, he designed several churches: in Härlanda, Vällingby, a much-publicized modernist suburb of Stockholm.
Celsing worked in a brutalist style with large exposed grey concrete surfaces, but combined this with large glass panes exposing the structure of the building from the outside, interior details in wood. The best known examples of this are the Kulturhuset at Sergels torg in central Stockholm, the Filmhuset, the house of the Swedish Film Institute on Gärdet in Stockholm, his addition to Carolina Rediviva, the main building of the Uppsala University Library. In Uppsala, Celsing built a new wing for the Stockholms nation building, the current Ekonomikum building. Kulturhuset is from most angles dominated by its concrete structure, with the adjacent theatre building having a façade of stainless steel, but from the front by its glass façade and the thin lines of the concrete floors, giving the impression of a number of shelves open towards the open place outside, Sergels torg, it is located in a part of Stockholm where the old structure of the city, the old architecture and the topography was entirely replaced in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s with modernist architecture and new functions finance and large-scale retail businesses.
The reaction against this development has been strong, many planned building and traffic projects had to be stopped from the 1970s and as a result of the public opinion against what was, continues to be, regarded as a significant loss of irreplaceable cultural values. The Kulturhuset was intended as a "cultural oasis" in this new city of commerce, with an open library in the bottom floor, a large theatre, space for exhibitions in the rest of the building; as the flagship building of the city redevelopment, Kulturhuset has unfairly, become the target of much of the anger against the whole city redevelopment project. In 1970, one critic, Claes Brunius, noted in Expressen that "Stockholm is building the largest vacuum in the country"; the public opinion against the project may have been strengthened by the fact that the Kulturhuset and the interconnected Stockholm City Theatre were used as a temporary parliamentary building for several years, but as such the structure won the prestigious Kasper Salin Prize in 1972.
One of his last buildings is the Bank of Sweden building at Brunkebergstorg in Stockholm, the design of, dominated by the use of cubes, squares and circles, all intended to give the impression of stability. It makes use of thick slabs of hewn dark granite in the façade, thus borrowing from the renaissance tradition of using rustication to give the impression of solidity and from the 19th century neo-renaissance practice of using rustication in bank buildings for this purpose; the Bank of Sweden had since 1907 been located to a semi-circular building on Helgeandsholmen, but moved to Celsing's building in 1976. Peter Celsing's son, Johan Celsing, has become noted as an architect of public buildings since the 1990s, one of his buildings won the Kasper Salin Prize in 1999. Härlanda Church, Gothenburg St Tomas Church, Vällingby Boliden Church, Boliden Nacksta Church, Sundsvall Kulturhuset, Stockholm Bank of Sweden Building, Stockholm Villa Klockberga, private property in Lovön, outside Stockholm Villa Friis, private property in Lovön, outside Stockholm.
Filmhuset in Gärdet, Stockholm Olaus Petri Church, Stockholm Almtuna Church in Uppsala Extension of university library Carolina Rediviva, Uppsala Ekonomikum, Uppsala Peter Celsing at archINFORM The Bank of Sweden building, with images and a brief biography of the architect History of Kulturhuset, by Beate Sydhoff, former director of Kulturhuset Filmhuset, main page and Filmhuset, history History of the Stockholm Nation buildings, Uppsala Ekonomikum known as Humanistiskt-samhällsvetenskapligt centrum, Uppsala University
Sweden
Sweden the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre; the highest concentration is in the southern half of the country. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats and Swedes and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia; the climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence, that in spite of this still retains warm continental summers.
Today, the sovereign state of Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state, like its neighbour Norway. The capital city is Stockholm, the most populous city in the country. Legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister. Sweden is a unitary state divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the Hanseatic League threatened Scandinavia's culture and languages; this led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years War on the Reformist side, an expansion of its territories began and the Swedish Empire was formed; this became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809.
The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs; the union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, albeit Sweden has since 2009 moved towards cooperation with NATO. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but declined NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum, it is a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens, it has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality and human development.
The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes"; this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland. Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi and Rootsi are used, names considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, who were known as the Rus', through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia; the etymology of Swedes, thus Sweden, is not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania.
This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology. Sweden is first described in a written source in Germania by Tacitus in 98 AD. In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC; as for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts of male names, demonstrating th
Strandvägen
Strandvägen is a boulevard on Östermalm in central Stockholm, Sweden. Completed just in time for the Stockholm World's Fair 1897, it became known as one of the most prestigious addresses in town. Stretching 1 km east from Nybroplan, Strandvägen is intercepted by Arsenalsgatan, Sibyllegatan, Skeppargatan, Styrmansgatan, Grev Magnigatan, Torstenssonsgatan, Banérgatan, Narvavägen, Djurgårdsbron, Storgatan and Oxenstiernsgatan, it has four parallel streets: Almlöfsgatan, Väpnargatan and Riddargatan. Hamngatan forms a continuation in its western end; the Djurgården heritage tramway passes over Strandvägen. The waters south of the street are named Nybroviken, Ladugårdslandsviken, Djurgårdsbrunnsviken; the street is first mentioned as Ladugårdslands Strandgata and Strandvägen in 1885. However, an outstanding quay along the present waterfront was first discussed in 1857, within two years a proposal was produced for a combined harbour and an esplanade planted with trees — "a street unparalleled in Europe".
Works were started in 1862, but by the mid-1870s walking along the water front was still practicable at best, as the area was still crowded with sheds and hovels. The first trees along the 79 m wide street were planted in 1879, while construction work on the buildings along the street was started in the 1880s, 75% of the 24 buildings were built in the 1890s. However, in front of the World's Fair in 1897, the street was trafficable for both pedestrians and vehicles. Bünsow House on number 29–33 constructed in 1886–88, set a standard, not only for the entire street but for architecture in Sweden during the 1890s, it is named after Friedrich Bünsow, who made a fortune on wood and embellished central Sundsvall with the same kind of luxurious architecture. His architectural contest for the site at Strandvägen was won by the young architect Isak Gustaf Clason who during the contest was studying Renaissance architecture in the Loire Valley. From there he imported the towers, the dormers, the "honest materials".
In his 1895 novel Förvillelser, author Hjalmar Söderberg described the building as "a defiant and brilliant knight's poem in stone". Though Bünsow House set the standard for the street, it was an exception in that it was commissioned by one of the prospected residents; the builders of the remaining buildings on Strandvägen were well aware of the value of the prestigious location, therefore commissioned some of the best architects of the era to design both the façades and the 5–10 room apartments to appeal to their exclusive audience. From the beginning, the rental cost for most of the apartments behind the prestigious façades exceeded average salaries; the smaller apartments on the backyards, were intended for low-income earners. Since 2005 works to develop Strandvägen into a more attractive area for both pedestrians and ships have been progressing: Footways are being paved in granite and lampposts and litter bins are given a uniform design, while parked cars are confined to available underground carparks.
Geography of Stockholm Diplomatstaden Walk on the Strandvägen Read about Strandvägens history and the businesses located on Strandvägen "Innerstaden: Östermalm". Stockholms gatunamn. Stockholm: Kommittén för Stockholmsforskning. 1992. ISBN 91-7031-042-4. "Strandvägen rustas och blir ett levande promenadstråk". Stockholm: City of Stockholm. 2005-04-26. Retrieved 2007-02-03. Andersson, Magnus. "Strandvägen - Esplanadsystem med fläkt av stora världen". Stockholms årsringar - En inblick i stadens framväxt. Stockholmia förlag. ISBN 91-7031-068-8
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou shortened to Centre Pompidou and known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil, the Marais. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, along with Gianfranco Franchini, it houses a vast public library. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg, it is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building, was opened on 31 January 1977 by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. As of 2006, the Centre Pompidou has had over 180 million visitors since 1977 and more than 5,209,678 visitors in 2013, including 3,746,899 for the museum; the sculpture Horizontal by Alexander Calder, a free-standing mobile, 7.6 m tall, was placed in front of the Centre Pompidou in 2012. The idea for a multicultural complex, bringing together in one place different forms of art and literature, developed, in part, from the ideas of France's first Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux, a western proponent of the decentralisation of art and culture by impulse of the political power.
In the 1960s, city planners decided to move the foodmarkets of Les Halles significant structures long prized by Parisians, with the idea that some of the cultural institutes be built in the former market area. Hoping to renew the idea of Paris as a leading city of culture and art, it was proposed to move the Musée d'Art Moderne to this new location. Paris needed a large, free public library, as one did not exist at this time. At first the debate concerned Les Halles, but as the controversy settled, in 1968, President Charles de Gaulle announced the Plateau Beaubourg as the new site for the library. A year in 1969, the new president adopted the Beaubourg project and decided it to be the location of both the new library and a centre for the contemporary arts. In the process of developing the project, the IRCAM was housed in the complex; the Rogers and Piano design was chosen among 681 competition entries. World-renowned architects Oscar Niemeyer, Jean Prouvé and Philip Johnson made up the jury.
It was the first time in France. The selection was announced in 1971 at a "memorable press conference" where the contrast between the sharply-dressed Pompidou and "hairy young crew" of architects represented a "grand bargain between radical architecture and establishment politics." It was the first major example of an'inside-out' building in architectural history, with its structural system, mechanical systems, circulation exposed on the exterior of the building. All of the functional structural elements of the building were colour-coded: green pipes are plumbing, blue ducts are for climate control, electrical wires are encased in yellow, circulation elements and devices for safety are red. According to Piano, the design was meant to be “not a building but a town where you find everything – lunch, great art, a library, great music”. National Geographic described the reaction to the design as "love at second sight." An article in Le Figaro declared "Paris has its own monster, just like the one in Loch Ness."
But two decades while reporting on Rogers' winning the Pritzker Prize in 2007, The New York Times noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down" and that "Mr. Rogers earned a reputation as a high-tech iconoclast with the completion of the 1977 Pompidou Centre, with its exposed skeleton of brightly coloured tubes for mechanical systems; the Pritzker jury said the Pompidou "revolutionised museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city." The Centre was built by GTM and completed in 1977. The building cost 993 million French francs. Renovation work conducted from October 1996 to January 2000 was completed on a budget of 576 million francs; the nearby Stravinsky Fountain, on Place Stravinsky, features 16 whimsical moving and water-spraying sculptures by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle, which represent themes and works by composer Igor Stravinsky. The black-painted mechanical sculptures are by the coloured works by de Saint-Phalle.
The fountain opened in 1983. Video footage of the fountain appeared throughout the French language telecourse, French in Action; the Place Georges Pompidou in front of the museum is noted for the presence of street performers, such as mimes and jugglers. In the spring, miniature carnivals are installed temporarily into the place in front with a wide variety of attractions: bands and sketch artists, tables set up for evening dining, skateboarding competitions. By the mid-1980s, the Centre Pompidou was becoming the victim of its huge and unexpected popularity, its many activities, a complex administrative structure; when Dominique Bozo returned to the Centre in 1981 as Director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, he re-installed the museum, bringing out the full range of its collections and displayed the many major acquisitions, made. By 1992, the Centre de Création Industrielle was incorporated into the Centre Pompidou; the Centre Pompidou was intended to handle 8,000 visitors a day. In its first two decade
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