National Museum of Modern Art
Musée National d’Art Moderne is the national museum for modern art of France, and is housed in the Centre Pompidou. It is one of the largest museums for modern and contemporary art. These works include painting, sculpture, drawing, print, photography, cinema, new media, architecture, and design.
Basic information
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The museum has the second largest collection of modern and contemporary art in the world, after the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with more than 100,000 works of art by 6,400 artists from 90 countries since Fauvism in 1905.
⇒ Practical information • Interactive Map • Exhibitions / Museum
It was the first major example of an ‘inside-out’ building with its structural system, mechanical systems, and circulation exposed on the exterior of the building. Initially, 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, and circulation elements and devices for safety (e.g., fire extinguishers) are red.
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 later, 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 Place Georges Pompidou (map) 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.
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Must to See & Do
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Transport around Paris
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RATP ::: Metro timetables • Bus timetables • Tramway timetables • RER timetables
⇒ Public transport (parisinfo.com) • Getting to France (uk.france.fr)
sobus.travel — sells bus tickets for all the bus companies.
The Noctilien (Map of Noctilien) is a night bus service that operates in Paris and the Paris region from 12.30am to 5.30am. Ouibus • Isilines • FlixBus • Eurolines • Megabus >> (*Intercity buses in France)
Trains are a great way to get around in France. For regional trains, schedules can be found at ter.sncf.com. You can get from pretty much anywhere to anywhere else by train.
For long distances, use the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, or High-speed train) on which reservations are obligatory. TGV • Thello • Ouigo. + RailEurope • Eurostar • Thalys • izy (Paris-Brussels) • TGV Lyria (Switzerland) • DB (Germany) • RENFE (Barcelona) >> *Rail travel in France
Several weekends throughout the year in France are known as ‘Black Saturday’ (Samedi noir) because of the start or end of school holidays and the coinciding traffic jams on French roads caused by thousands of tourists travelling to and from their holiday destinations. When possible it is wise to avoid these days. For traffic reports, see the website of the French traffic service.
⇒ Driving in France (wikivoyage)
aeroport.fr – list of airports in France. / parisaeroport.fr – Paris airport information.
Brittany Ferries • P&O Ferries • DFDS Seaways
England ⇔ France:
- P&O Ferries – operate freight and passenger services from Dover to Calais.
- DFDS Seaways – operate freight and passenger services from Dover to Dunkirk.
- LD Lines – operate freight and passenger services from Portsmouth to Le Havre.
- Brittany Ferries – operate freight and passenger services from Portsmouth to Caen, Cherbourg, andSt Malo, from Poole to Cherbourg and from Plymouth to Roscoff.
- Condor Ferries – operate freight and passenger services from Portsmouth to Cherbourg, Poole to St Malo and Weymouth to St Malo.
Ireland ⇔ France:
- Brittany Ferries – operate ferry services from Cork to Roscoff.
- Celtic Link Ferries – operate ferry services from Rosslare to Cherbourg.
- Irish Ferries – operate ferry services from Rosslare to Cherbourg and from Rosslare to Roscoff.
Video source: Centre Pompidou

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