ah gay the art capital of the [Music] world the Metro seem to have more musicians than [Music] writers actually Paris isn't the art capital of the world anymore most critics think it lost that distinction to New York after World War II but now it's trying to win back the title chiefly with this booo or officially the George pompo National Center of art and culture what the hell is this huh what is it where are we that's the museum that's the M what is it the um poyd [Music] [Music] Boberg [Music] [Music] it's hard not to feel insecure in museums why don't we go to them we're looking for something there but we're not sure what it is the French had the idea that if you could build a cultural center that was controversial and zany and fun you could not only get experienced Museum goers to relax you might be able to attract people who normally wouldn't go near such places I like the center but there are definitely those who don't it's probably easier to like if you're a visitor than if you live next door since I count myself as one of those frequently bewildered in museums I decided I had the basic credentials to make a film about this one although here while changing camera position I stumbled on a beer [Applause] can there's a Design Center music research lab a library and a museum of 20th century art half the site was left as open space and it's been taken over by local talent the the idea is to try and democratize art bring it out of the Chic Galleries and into the streets The Architects wanted to emphasize openness and informality this was the reason behind the plaza and for turning the design of a conventional Building inside out to try and seduce inside the merely curious but by sticking this wild noisy place right in the middle of an old historic neighborhood the planners have not only infuriated the traditionalist they've raise nasty questions about what art is and who it's for some people who have grown fond of the center call it a friendly [Applause] monster Catherine my sound recordist fell into conversation with another crew obviously we're not the only ones to find the center a Snappy subject for a movie this man turned out to be from Moscow Hands Across the sea but when you look at it from here you can think of notam you know that Notre is on the island we don't have that in Atlanta what is that what is that building over there man this isn't the first institution to try and grapple with the issue of high culture versus popular culture museums have always worried about how they could display art that pushed back the frontiers of modernism but could still be accessible to everyone but boua has compounded the challenge architecturally by being itself an affront to traditional taste in an open letter of protest to the National director of Public Works a number of Parisian artists said we writers painters sculptors and Architects all passionately concerned with that Spirit of beauty which till now had been preserved intact in Paris wish to protest with all possible strength and indignation in the name of French art history and taste now menaced and threatened against the erection in the very heart of our capital of this useless monster this Tower of Babel the date of the letter was January 10th 1889 the subject was an earlier Parisian Monument the center can be confusing there are some arrows and numbers but they don't pull you through the experience in any set sequ quence this is a place where you taste it random whether you love art and respond to it emotionally or are more apt to wonder if the whole business isn't a hoax I think I think this this is absolutely great really but when I was a kid I I had an erector set and I never had enough pieces I always used to buy more Erector Sets you always ran out of pieces and this is this is this is an absolute explosion of my childhood fantasy do do you think it in any way it conflicts with the oh no on the contrary you know I I I think that that if you're you're building a building to house Modern Art then why not go architecturally wild go as wild as as the art what what could be wilder than some of the screw ball stuff that's in here once you come in you're looking at you're focused on the art and you're having fun with it cuz there are lots of humorous things so you're really enjoying it for it I was just at the Lou you just get a totally different uh I probably am guilty of going through rather rapidly but the purpose of that is to get some feeling for the what's available and decide what I like and then decide where I really want to spend my time yeah but now that's interesting because you use the word guilty like going through a museum quickly is like a sin yes I where does that come from I mean what well that comes that's an interesting that is interesting no in other words it means I I really was not there to [Music] study we went up to the top floor where we'd arranged to meet one of the center's Architects when Padu decided to push ahead with his project he set up an international design competition to everyone's amazement and a good deal of French resentment It Was Won by two young foreigners Richard Rogers from England and Renzo Piano an Italian piano can be seen here gracefully answering my familiar questions about his scandalous building looking down so the p is like a theater for the people in the building but as well the people in the building are like a theater for the people in the P you know and that double relationship is very important to me okay all right that I mean that you can clearly see that but what a lot of people are going to tell you is great that's all nice and people having a lot of fun but what's that got to do with the Museum What's it got to do with a library what's it got to do with I mean here for example now what does it have to do with with paintings or with museums have usually a sort of psychological barrier what we have been trying to do here is to collapse that barrier and people uh mefan how you say in English mefan they're afraid or they suspect it yes they suspect of people against Museum against Art is actually falling here and the public you have here is the public of the Underground Station more than the public of the [Music] museum helicopter helicopter the English helicopter the japanes was a was a what I'm sure about is that a lot of people comes for not for a specific reason they come over they walk up they look par then they go back home they just come over as they go to the tel how do you feel I'm I'm not unhappy for that I mean I mean this building let's say a lot of people said it's like a factory and they said it's like is a rafinery is a factory just to be to be to be bad against the building but to me that was a fantastic compliment fact fantastic what is better than a faor for the culture that's something producing something you Sebastian dup lives in a neighborhood and he watched the center being built he and his friends play both on the Plaza and inside the building [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Applause] I'm trying to find out how you feel when you're in a museum yeah it's sometimes it's almost painful you know you just it's so overwhelming and so much what you've thought about and dreamt about is done you know when you were born my favorite period happened to be going on the year I was born who are some of the people that you're talking oh like Picasso and Pa Clay they're I used to go to museums to try and meet women looking back on it now it seems a little strange that I could have had such a casual interest in art myself and yet still hope to find the girl of my dreams among paintings although I did eventually marry this woman we didn't meet in a museum but she enjoys them I haven't decided if there's a lesson here paris's other cultural Monument the Lou On Any Sunday afternoon about 90% of the people lined up outside the building are there for one primary purpose to see the Mona Lisa across the street from the Lou is the apartment of my wife's oldest friend Mar CL BR this is mar [Music] Cloe since the two of them agree on almost nothing and since we knew Mar clae like many other parisians dislike the pyu center we asked her to meet us there and explain [Music] why [Music] [Music] spe said love it's funny because I feel more like looking outside and inside and I'm not supposed to be looking outside what I like is actually outside for I mean is is it that it's pretentious you think is it what I'm not sure the right word pretentious I think it's missed they missed the point where should have been done in the center of the city what should have been done in the center of the city something else a real place for a feast not this I think I I think that's wrong because I think this place is it's because this place exists that we have the idea that we should have a place for a feast no look at the people outside they're none here they're not interested in the museum at all no but the idea is that if you draw people to the central place some of them will come inside people who have never been exposed to Art before some of them will come inside and will be exposed to it they won't go to the L no neither will [Laughter] I no you can't argue there because this place draws 20,000 people a day it's a thing I mean Phil a did you get that on Phil H got that on fil the American strike again Estelle and David strassler and Ken and Andrea Becker spent the morning in the museum and then went up to the cafeteria for lunch the day before they had visited the Lou there's a listing of the top five things you see in Paris we're looking forward to going to the sewers because we'll probably have one up and everybody else has been to Paris because they haven't gone to the sewers you know they've gone to the notam and they've gone to the lou my favorite was the R I really enjoyed when I come to places like this and I see some of the things that are being displayed as I said to Estelle thought that comes into my mind is you can fool all of the people all of the time you can you can put something up and light it and say this is Art and people who have um um less uh confidence in in their own opinion will agree and some people look at that and say that is junk and ridiculous and just walk away from and what makes something lasting mean is the Leonardo da Vinci's painting you know theou they have it the Mona Lisa that great I mean what makes that one picture so great there too many at least things that when you talk about the mon at least you can say whether or not it looks like a particular woman or not we I dated her I know so many people had brought up the Lou and the Mona Lisa we decided we better go have a [Music] look excuse me I just saw you taking a picture of the Mona Lisa can you tell me why I want to get instead of offer a a card I wanted it a a snack uhhuh I don't know whe it would come out though I don't think it will somehow why do you want a snap of it because I think it's one of the most famous paintings too I mean I'm not artistic to that extent but I think it's one of the most famous on uh-huh well I can understand that but I'm as you say it probably if it comes out it probably won't be nearly as good as you could get I mean because it's dark as a reflection I guess maybe because I said well I was in here actually in here taking it uh-huh instead of on a photo uh-huh just to prove that I was here there's terrible isn't it to say that no I don't know it's I'm sure that's the reason for everybody yeah I think so you probably most of them would say well at least I was here you know but it's strange because nobody would doubt you were here would they I doubt it no excuse me thank you very much welcome when we finished shooting I realized I no longer had my wallet so we went looking for a police station we found one midway between the Lou and the pomu center the first thing that made us aware we weren't in America is that this headquarters is housed in a 17th century Courtyard [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Applause] foree the [Applause] [Music] for we went back to the [Music] [Applause] L I suppose you're bound to get some sort of an impression do you go to museums at home not a lot I would no I find that over oring in many ways I find difficulty in appreciating that sort of art actually yeah I that's what I'm interested in how tell me more about that well um when you say that sort of art what do you mean is there is there some that you do when you don't Bas no I'm basically an engineer so I can understand engineering and scientific types of things you know such is the equipment that sort of equipment quite interested me when it comes to the finer point of pictures I really couldn't tell one from another did you like it h yes it nice especially the monaa did you like the Mona Lisa oh yes why why I just like the colors and sort of variety how about you did you see anything in there you like to say well M ler was quite hand painting was it really got you don't have to say you don't want [Music] to if you want to you you don't find [Music] it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foree fore [Music] Vo I mean I know the the art can be difficult it can be some art that can be difficult but for how long it remains difficult art difficult art doesn't remain difficult forever uh really I mean there's a time when after all its ideas are so absorbed David hotney is an English artist who has pieces in the pompo center and in most other major modern museums his background is British working class and he's very skeptical of any theory about what the average Museum goer understands or likes or even hates I think a passionate hatred of something after all we we should be talking about passions in a way I would think that's rare I mean somebody like you can come along and ask some say well I don't care for that or I don't think that but it's not a passionate remark they're making they're passing some slight judgment that's all and I'm saying you shouldn't take it too seriously or bothered about it really I mean I do think arts for everybody we all need it we all need it without it I mean there's not much sense in life I think to me all religious I you have religion or you can have art or both French intellectuals have been debating the theories of Bo since it opened marelin plan is a prominent Paris art critic [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] C yeah how do they know that no idea how they know that and if they think they know what went on in their heads they're a better man than I am and you should talk to I think that's a very very arrogant idea it's like people it's like uh people who suggest um you know poorly produced little opera companies shouldn't exist because it's terrible but there might was somebody just turned on by something the first opera I ever saw was by I thought it was wonderful I was 10 years old sure if I saw it now I'd think it was a crappy little there were trying to play Pini probably 15 people in the orchestra instead of the usual five but if somebody's turned on and even if you're in a long long cure I add it 10 I mean to suggest that nobody is getting anything from it is an arrogant ter for [Music] forol [Music] all [Music] any [Music] [Music]