Centre Pompidou-Metz

Metz, France

Architects: Shigeru Ban Architects

Location: Metz, France
Year: 2010

This annex for the Pompidou Center in Paris, is to be built in Metz as a complex including an art museum and theater. By locating a large roof in the park, and by opening the glass shutter façade around the perimeter, a continuous transition of the interior and exterior space is created.

The roof is made from laminated wood in a hexagonal woven pattern composed in the form of a Chinese bamboo-woven hat. This large wooden roof is covered in a Teflon-coated fiberglass membrane and allows soft natural light to filter into the interior.

The main galleries are a series of 90mx15m cantilevering rectilinear tubes that float above the ground, and their glass window ends point in the direction of the cathedral and other monuments of the city.