Walk in Paris: Beaubourg and the Châtelet district

A short visit to the centre of Paris with the main purpose of visiting the Georges Pompidou Museum of Modern Art.

The walk allows the visit of the Halles district and the centre Georges Pompidou (museum of modern art). The departure can be done from the metro station Châtelet (M1). The first part of the visit takes us to the Pompidou center, the center includes a permanent museum, a cinema, a restaurant, a concert hall... One floor is dedicated to temporary exhibitions of artists. Here we just visit the museum part of the center grouped on the fourth and fifth floors. We find the greatest names of contemporary art: Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Miro, Giacometti, Dali.... and others more unknown.

Whatever your approach to contemporary art, the museum leaves no one indifferent, sometimes you have to be careful and stay focused, an ordinary chair in the middle of a room is not meant to rest but can be a work of art. The entrance fee to the center is 14E - very expensive. The works presented change quite often, the photos presented may not correspond to the works in the museum.

The second part of the walk allows to see the Halles district.

Interest: ratinggood (1 user)
Difficulty: difficulty
Duration: 4 h.
Departure point (Google Maps)

Entrance hall of the museum

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Entrance hall of the museum
At the top of the photo, you can see the instigator of the museum: President Georges Pompidou, he was a modern art lover. At the bottom of the picture, you can see the queue to buy the tickets. It is better to buy them with the automatic machines or to buy them before on the Internet.

Centre Pompidou seen from the outside

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Centre Pompidou seen from the outside
The museum was much maligned when it was built in the 1970s. It was nicknamed the oil refinery. The principle of the architects is not to hide the internal machinery (air conditioning, electricity...) which is normally hidden.

Ellsworth Kelly - Dark Blue Panel - 1985

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Ellsworth Kelly - Dark Blue Panel - 1985
The museum part of the centre is grouped on floors 4 and 5. Not all the works are exhibited and there is a rotation every two years or so. Here a beautiful and simple painting in the contemporary art section.

Andy Wharol - Ten Lizes - 1963

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Andy Wharol - Ten Lizes - 1963
Ten portraits of Liz Taylor (the photo shows only 6). All the great names of modern art are represented. There are many Picasso, Matisse, Léger, Miro...

Henri Matisse - Polynesia - 1944

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Henri Matisse - Polynesia - 1944
The main interest of a visit to a museum is that you can get very close to the works and see the work of the painter. Here, by getting closer, we can see that these are papers stuck on the canvas (with a lot of talent).

Jan Mancuska - Oedipus - 2006

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Jan Mancuska - Oedipus - 2006
The letters cross the exhibition space. They form a coherent text. Each line of text represents a different point of view. To be seen.

Au premier plan - Mario Merz - Igloo - 1968

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Au premier plan - Mario Merz - Igloo - 1968
Some of the works and, above all, the explanations that go with them can be surprising. For Mario Merz, the Igloo embodies a dialectical space in which things and events are never quite resolved.

Restaurant

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Restaurant
At the top of the center is a restaurant "Le Georges" which is also very design (prices are too). Wonderful view on Paris.

View of Paris from the top of the center

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View of Paris from the top of the center
We dominate Paris by going up in the floors. It should be noted that you can enter the center and climb to the top without entering the museum. Price: 5 euros. It's expensive to have a view of Paris, so you might as well go to Montmartre, it's free.

Fontaine - Marcel Duchamp - 1917

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Fontaine - Marcel Duchamp - 1917
The fountain is a urinal by R. Mutt (a pseudonym for Duchamp). Today it is common to see all sorts of artworks, but in 1917 Duchamp was one of the first to turn everyday objects into art.

Saint-Eustache Church

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Saint-Eustache Church
Church unknown compared to Notre-Dame. It is almost as big and certainly as (or more) beautiful. You just have to walk around it to see different architectures. Inside there is a magnificent organ.

Rue Montorgueil

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Rue Montorgueil
Pedestrian area, this street has kept a lot of charm, it is very lively with many shops and cafes / restaurants.

Rue Saint-Denis

In the past, the rue Saint-Denis was famous for its nightlife. Today there are hardly any prostitutes or sex shops.

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