The Centre Pompidou

The Centre Pompidou is unmistakable for its exoskeleton of brightly colored pipes, ducts, and the diagonal glass tube of its escalator, known as the caterpillar, which climbs across the facade. Inaugurated in nineteen seventy-seven, the building was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. They won an international competition with a radical proposal to move all the mechanical and structural systems to the outside, leaving the interior floors as completely open, flexible spaces.