Centre Pompidou-Metz

The museum is a regional branch of a national modern art collection, opened in 2010 on a new urban district. The Japanese design team, with a French practice, won the competition with a building gathered under a single great roof.

The roof is a hexagonal lattice of woven laminated timber, inspired by the form of a woven hat, covered with a translucent membrane that glows at night. Beneath it, three long gallery tubes are stacked and turned in different directions, their ends glazed to frame views of the city, alongside a tall central spire.

Before the museum opened, a small temporary project house on the edge of the site presented the project to the public, built of simple, inexpensive materials: two containers at either end supporting a roof on just two columns, with a glazed façade facing the passage.