“Beaubourg, the Great Sleep”: Romain Laprade Captures Time Standing Still at the Centre Pompidou

Portfolio ► Contemplative, refined and poetic, Romain Laprade’s images lend the same quiet intensity to the monumental and the mundane. Created exclusively for the Centre Pompidou, Beaubourg, the Great Sleep catches the building in a strange, suspended state – a magical space between two temporalities. Through his lens, the singular giant of glass and steel reveals its rare, almost private side.

Art et photographie

Architecture

± 3 min 17 Jul 2026

At dusk, photographer Romain Laprade (born in 1988) wanders through the newly emptied, open spaces of the Centre Pompidou. Over the years, he has travelled across vast natural landscapes and sought out remarkable architectural sites around the world, presenting his work in exhibitions at Yvon Lambert and in a series of acclaimed artists’ books, including Distances. He has also collaborated with a number of leading luxury houses.

Bereft of the artworks, left to themselves, the gallery walls surreptitiously assume the qualities of sculpture.

A building of glass and steel, the Centre Pompidou offers itself to the falling dusk.

At the heart of the former restaurant, a structure by Jakob + MacFarlane evokes an organic form.

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Now, his singular gaze turns inward to the Centre Pompidou itself. Far removed from the energy that once defined it, Beaubourg – the iconic titan of twentieth-century architecture – appears to have drifted into a state of sleep. The hum of its machinery, the murmur of its visitors, the public announcements, the artworks themselves: all have fallen silent, making way for the sweeping renovation soon to begin.

Far removed from the energy that once defined it, Beaubourg – the iconic titan of twentieth-century architecture – appears to have drifted into a state of sleep.

Romain Laprade works in long stretches of stillness, waiting for the right light, the right angle. Eye pressed to the viewfinder, this reserved artist needs solitude to work – and a silence nothing can disturb.

The Bibliothèque publique d'information lies dormant before welcoming back its readers.

Around a turn in the empty gallery walls, an old emergency telephone, now silent.

The finest view of Paris is found atop its finest building. Beaubourg stands in serene watch over the landmarks and rooftops of the City of Light.

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Summer light plays across steel and glass. Long shadows stretch through the building, setting its architecture in motion through endless golden reflections. Stripped bare, the gallery walls have their revenge: they become sculptures in their own right. The pipes assert themselves more than ever. The emptied exhibition floors recede into the distance. For now, the building moves to an architectural score, uninterrupted.

As the Centre Pompidou prepares to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 2027, these exclusive images are a vivid reminder of its enduring modernity and radical ambition. ◼