On this day in history, January 31st, in 1977 the Pompidou Centre was commissioned in Paris.
It is the official home of the French National Museum of Art which houses some of the world’s finest collections of 20th and 21st century art. [1]
The building itself epitomizes modernity. It’s exterior features the mechanical and utility systems in bold, primary colors. The colors are color coded: blue for heating and cooling systems, yellow for electricity systems, blue for water flow systems and red for people movements – escalators and elevators. The architecture statement stood to defy the erudite artistic elite whose buildings at the time were austere and regal.
The Pompidou Centre is named after French President Georges Pompidou. He championed the building and sought a bold, populist design to house the modern artwork within its wall. The risky design of Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano won the bid.[2]
The avant guard building stands in stark contrast to architecture of its neighborhood, which dates back to the Medieval Ages. The building certainly has its critics, who call it among other things, the “Notre Dame of Pipes.’’ [3] However, this iconic building has since become a Parisian classic in its own right and welcomes on average 25,000 people a day. [4]
This building was designed to make a statement of modernity, transparency, and authenticity. The 1960s and 1970s were famous for artists that were expressing the same values. In the same period, the Beatles sang ‘Can’t buy me love,’ Andy Warhol painted Campbell soup cans and Slyvia Plath confessed openly in her poetry.
Those who relish in the architecture of the Pompidou Centre and in the artists of the 1960s and 1970s would delight to know that God values authenticity too. In fact, the Lord Jesus commands authenticity from His followers.
In the Gospels, Jesus railed against the Pharisees, who He knew as having inauthentic faith, and said:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Mat. 23: 25-28)
It’s easy to point the finger at the Pharisees and see their disingenuous faith that is based on pretense and pride. Yet the authentic faith that the Lord requires is to heed His words to examine our own pharisaical tendencies and sins, to repent, and draw close to Him in humble faith and dependence on the Spirit.
Jesus was fully authentic. He was tempted and admitted so to God and His closest friends. He admitted when His flesh was weak. He felt hunger, tiredness, grief, disappointment, abandonment, pain and betrayal. He was completely honest about all of those experiences and yet throughout His whole life was also completely holy.
The modern quest for authenticity, like the Pompidou Centre, can be an aim in itself. Yet Jesus shows in His words and life that authenticity is aimed to draw one, in a humble and contrite spirit, closer to the Father.
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