At 40, Paris' Pompidou Center Is Still 'An Unexpected Trip'

"This year, the Paris museum that looks like a jumble of giant, colored pipes with an escalator in a clear plastic tube zigzagging up its side turns 40."

"Nowadays, that museum — the Pompidou Center — has a secure place in the heart of Paris and in Parisians' hearts. But it wasn't always the case."

"'When it was first built, the reaction was one of horror,' said Serge Lasvignes, president of the Pompidou Center, who recounted the museum's beginnings at a recent meeting with the Anglo-American Press Association of Paris, of which NPR is a member."

"'Le Monde newspaper called the museum's construction the 'rape of Paris,' and city politicians thought their money had been totally wasted,' said Lasvignes. The 10-floor museum required 15,000 tons of steel and cost millions to build. Critics said it looked like an oil refinery."