The building was designed and built in 1969 -1974 by architectural team which consisted of Richard Rogers, Sue Rogers and Renzo Piano - the architectural Creme de la Creme.
Also the structural engineer involved in the construction Edmund Happold (Ove Arup & Partners then, and a founder of Buro Happold later )was one of the best ones, just to mention he was the engineer for the Sydney Opera house.
The architectural and structural dream teams main idea was to design a super high tech architecture by exposing and accentuating the commonly underestimated elements of the building for creating an aesthetic expression.They turned the entire thinking about the architecture upside down and contradicted all the rules that were obeyed by the traditionalists.
Proposed the shocking then, idea,to emphasize the other aspects, and elements of building like ventilation ducts, electrical ducts ,external walking decks, service decks, fire escape routes, steel structure elements, transparend full height glazing, air exhaust, inlets, outlets and many more components and brought them outside, and even make a sophisticated piece of art of all of them.
Initially, each type of service had a particular colour but with time most of the elements were painted white.
The building is housing on of the biggest collection of the modern art and a french national library.
Next to the building there is a public square that features the Stravinsky Fountain - or Fontaine des automates that is famous for its moving and water spraying sculptures( black coloured painted by Jean Tinguely) (colour painted sculptures by Niky de Saint-Phalle) which represent the Igor Stravinsky's works.
