Centre Georges Pompidou (French pronunciation: [sɑ̃tʁ ʒɔʁʒ
pɔ̃pidu], commonly shortened to Centre Pompidou and also 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, and 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 the Bibliothèque publique d'information (Public
Information Library), a vast public library; the Musée National d'Art Moderne,
which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe; and IRCAM, a centre for
music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the Centre is known
locally as Beaubourg (IPA: [bobuʁ]). It is named after Georges Pompidou, the
President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building, and was
officially 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.