centre pompidou's skateable sculpture for paris 2024 olympic games

centre pompidou’s skateable sculpture in paris

A polychrome skateable sculpture pops up in the Piazza of Centre Pompidou in Paris in time for the 2024 Olympic Games. It’s the brainchild of French artist Raphaël Zarka, who made it in collaboration with architect Jean-Benoît Vétillard. They designed the skateable sculpture especially for Centre Pompidou’s Piazza, where the public can enjoy the sight of the ochre-colored space, and amateur and professional skaters can glide and slide through the ramps. The complex building, which is slated for a 2030 renovation by Moreau Kusunoki in collaboration with Frida Escobedo Studio, hosts Raphaël Zarka’s Cycloïd Piazza between June 22nd and September 15th, 2024.

all photos by Fred Mortagne, courtesy of Centre Pompidou

Applying galileo’s cycloid to a skateable sculpture

Some of the design influences that Raphaël Zarka turned to for his skateable sculpture were the experimental physics laboratories of the Classical era. The French artist reviewed astronomer Galileo’s cycloid, who named the curve of the fastest descent as such in 1599, and applied it in a skateboard environment for the first time and at Centre Pompidou’s Piazza for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Art and physics meet, mixed with references from the early 20th century, and the constructivist and geometric abstraction movement. The artist also referenced works by trailblazing women such as Katarzyna Kobro, Lyubov Popova, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and Sonia Delaunay.

in time for Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Centre Pompidou welcomes Raphaël Zarka’s Cycloïd Piazza

Cycloïd Piazza during Paris 2024 Olympic Games

The skateable sculpture’s polychrome palette includes red, green, and yellow, a selection of ochre shades that may invoke the hues of Renaissance paintings as well as the colors established in 1931 by modernist architect Le Corbusier. Raphaël Zarka is a skater himself, and he has also written several books on the subject, such as La Conjonction interdite, A Chronicle of Skateboarding 1777-2009, and Free Ride and Riding Modern Art. For him to work on Cycloïd Piazza for Centre Pompidou and release it in time for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games may be a full-circle moment, a platform that has allowed him to apprehend how he approaches shapes and spaces.

the skateable sculpture has the ochre colors of red, green, and yellow

Raphaël Zarka’s Cycloïd Piazza is the fourth in his series of skateable sculptures, which he began in New York in 2011. In his most recent one, the skate ramp at Centre Pompidou is accompanied by a multitude of ledges, stairs, passageways, and podiums. Visitors and skaters can walk, rest, gather, and roll around at once, even after watching the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, bringing everyone into a single space and encouraging them to be inventive in its use. ‘The word Piazza suggests a change of scale: my sculpture was designed as a space, an area within an area, a piazza on a piazza,’ says the French artist.

view from above of the skateable sculpture at Centre Pompidou’s Piazza