The creation of a second Centre Pompidou in Metz: social embedding of a new regional cultural facility and formation of a strategic action field.

International audienceThe present article analyses the process of the creation of a second Centre Pompidououtside Paris, based on the hypothesis that the success of the project depends on its socialembeddedness. It is argued that a strong indicator of this embeddedness is the emergence of anew strategic action field—crystallizing the meeting and linking of different actors with divergentinterests, but shared understandings about the common stakes. The process starts from acoincidence of cultural, political and economic motives that have their origins in related fields.These different interests are promoted by a few key protagonists who negotiate a preliminary, butstill fragile social order, mixing idealistic ideas and values with political and economic issues.The analysis reveals that social institutions of French culture exert a strong influence, whileinternal governance units in Paris retain significant powers of control. Although new networkconnections seem to form smoothly around the Centre Pompidou-Metz globally in the region, inboth the cultural and the economic domain they have developed quite unevenly