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Architectural Drawing, Facade
I was in the early university years of Architecture in the early seventees when the Centre George Pompidu Arts Museaum graced the pages of architectural magazines and has stirred quite a distraction in the present day style of modern and international of the Miesian, Corbusier, Paul Rudolph and I.M.Pei's design principles. The controversial design is the work of a newly formed Architect Partnership of a Florence born, Yale Graduate, British Architect Richard Rogers and an Italian Architect and professor, Renzo Piano who won international competition for a Museaum of Modern Arts in Paris, a structure built in honour of President George Pompidu of France. Both Architects are influenced and disciples of the Modernist movement of Van dehr Roe and Cobusier, departing to the "borgoise", classical, colonial, baroque and heritage architectural expression. The result was a bold structure, devoid of decoration, a building named "inside-out", where the usually hidden unsightly structural framing and mechanical systems, became the showcase of the unusual structure.
The conformists denounced the style as repulsive and obstructionist. The modernist and the young architects acclaimed it as an ingenious reflection of the time, a masterpiece of nature and technology, thus the birth of the term -"high tech" architectural style. Non architects may not clearly perceive that despite the unusual exposition of the mechanical elements of the Pompidu structure,the structural elements and its mechanical components are treated and designed aesthetically to be a part of the geometry, that in the end both function, natural lighting,circulation and communication, a difficult task, was achieved. As shown in the following photos
from a Rogers Museum in London, featuring the works fo this British genius, see it if you can.

Model: Centre Pompidu, ROGERS + Workshop, London

Dessin architural: Coupe-transversal POMPIDU. Rogers-Piano architectes
The Centre Pompidu therefore stands as an important Architectural Landmark as the beginning of High Tech Architectural Style, which continues to influence today's modern structures. Among noted influences is the infamous Lloyd's Bank of England, which today has it's enemies as a brutalist piece of structure amidst the elegance of Victorian English Street, the building of course was also designed by Richard Rogers with another Yale classmate, the honourable Sir Norman Foster, who together has formed Foster and Rogers Architects, the top Architectural firm in the universe, authors of many of the most important structures in the world.
Isn't just fitting then, that the Father of High-Tech Architecture is awarded to construct the main tower to rise above the vanished New York Lantern of the World Trade Center, presenting a new, much more refined structure from Pompidu, the Freedom Tower to catch the glorious New York sunset and once again illuminating the Hudson (river).

MODEL: FREEDOM TOWER, Ground Zero, NY, ROGERS + Workshop

THE NEW LAMPS OVER HUDSON, Foster-Rogers, Maki and Piano, Architects























