The Challenge of Manufacturing Cast Steel for the Nodes and the “Gerberettes” at the Centre Pompidou From Failure to Rescue

The article examines the manufacture of the steel structure of the Centre Pompidou, designed by Piano+Rogers Architects and Ove Arup & Partners between 1971 and 1977, with the steelworks Krupp Industrie und Stahlbau and Pohlig Heinz Bleichert. The accident involving the failure of the castings is the starting point for an investigation using the chronicle of events to study the causes and consequences of one of the most complex manufacturing processes of post-war architecture.