When you first see the Pompidou, you either love it or you hate it. Most people love it and can't help but giggle with childish glee at the spaceship-like exterior that scandalized all of Paris when it was built in 1977. Named after French president Georges Pompido (1911-740, it was designed by then-unknowns Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. The architects' claim to fame with this museum is that they put all the building's guts on the outside and color-coded them: water pipes are green, air ducts are blue, electrics are yellow, and things like elevators and escalators are red. Inside you'll find art from the 20th century to the present day.

The Musée National d'Art Modern (Modern Art Museum, entrance on Level 4) occupies the top two levels. Level five is devoted to modern art, including major works by Matisse, Modigliani, Marcel Duchamp, and Picasso, and level four to contemporary art since the '60s, including video installations. Outside next to the museum's sloping piazza -- where throngs of teenagers hang out (and there's free wireless access) -- is the Atelier Brancusi (Brancusi Studio). This small, airy museum contains four rooms reconstituting Brancusi's studios with works from all periods of his career. Around the corner in the place Igor-Stravinsky is the zany, colorful Stravinsky fountain. On the opposite side of rue Rambuteau on the wall at the corner of rue Clairvaux and Passage Brantô is the appealingly bizarre mechanical brass- and steel-clock, Le Déefenseur de Temps.