As I stand and look at a six-metre skeleton of a domestic cat named Felix, the words of Alice in Wonderland spring to mind: “Curiouser and curiouser.” The sculpture is part of a thought-provoking and enchanting exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, and this isn’t the first time I’ve felt a sense of wonder during my weekend in this lesser-known city in north-eastern France. While most of us know what to expect from a city break in, say, Paris, Lyon or Bordeaux, Metz throws up surprises at every turn.
The giant feline sculpture is the work of Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan (of banana-duct-taped-to-a-wall fame), whose works form part of Dimanche Sans Fin (Endless Sunday), an exhibition he has curated that brings together more than 400 works from Paris’s Centre Pompidou, which closed for a five-year renovation last October. Each piece depicts a different way the “day of rest” could be interpreted, whether it’s the innocent play of Picasso’s sculpture Little Girl Jumping Rope (1950-1954) or Max Ernst’s figure playing chess in the King Playing with the Queen (1944).
In a room dedicated to artists’ portraits of their mothers, Cattelan’s Shadow (2023) shows his mum hiding in a fridge (the thought of cooking a Sunday roast might drive many of us to take such action).
I’m being shown around by Cattelan’s co-curator, Zoé Stillpass. “It was amazing to have all the pieces from the Paris Pompidou to play with,” she says. “The banana exhibit, which makes you question the idea of ‘the masterpiece’ and why we give value to something, has a room to itself here.”
But my jaw had dropped before I’d even set foot in the exhibition, when I set eyes on the Pompidou-Metz itself. It opened in 2010 and is an extraordinary feat of design. Japanese architect Shigeru Ban took inspiration from a Chinese bamboo-woven hat to create hexagonal lattice of laminated wood and draped white fibreglass roof. The building fills a wide open space that was once occupied by a Roman amphitheatre.
Metz was something of a playground for architecture long before the Pompidou arrived. Before I’d left the station, I’d had an introduction to the city’s Germanic Imperial Quarter. Built between 1905 and 1908 during Kaiser Wilhelm II’s occupation of Alsace-Lorraine, the station is more akin to a church than a transport hub, with a striking stained-glass window depicting Charlemagne, the eighth-century Frankish king, carved pillars, mosaics and a beautiful glass-roofed arcade. Outside is a stately water tower that once serviced the steam engines.
Architects designed the Imperial Quarter to feel old, with winding streets, leafy squares and the stately Avenue Foch with its ornate mansions. Elsewhere, in Place Saint-Louis in the real old town, the stone arcades occupied by money-changers in the 14th century are now home to cafes and restaurants, with terraces sprawling into the square.
Renaissance architecture also gets a look in with the Maison des Têtes on En Fournirue, which dates from 1529 and has five detailed busts above its leaded windows. All these attractions are easily reached on the free electric shuttle bus that loops round the city centre.
Later, a solar-powered boat trip along the River Moselle gives a view of the city’s monuments from the water, including a Japanese Torii gate and Protestant church the Temple Neuf, with its steel-grey roof tiles shimmering in the sun.
The city’s most imposing monument is the Cathédral Saint-Étienne. Built in yellow Jaumont limestone, it dates from the 13th century, but some of its most striking features are much more modern. Among its 6,500 sq metres of stained-glass windows – one of the world’s largest expanses – are works from the 1960s by Marc Chagall. Vivienne Rudd from the city’s tourist office is showing me around. She explains how Chagall tells the story of Adam and Eve in his intricate design, with its abstract lines and ethereal figures: “You can see how Eve is in front of the tree of knowledge, holding a snake, and you can see Adam’s face hiding in the blue panes.” In the windows in the north transept, she shows me where to spot Jesus’s head and his crown of thorns. It takes some concentrating, but then I spy it.
“If you can’t see it, you have to go and drink a shot of mirabelle eau-de-vie [the local plum-based spirit] and then come back and look,” she laughs.
Even without drinking Alice’s elixir, the sight of Metz’s new design hotel soaring into the sky makes me feel like I’ve shrunk. Celebrated Parisian designer Philippe Starck’s Maison Heler took 10 years to complete but finally opened last March, just a few minutes’ walk from the Pompidou-Metz. Its design is extraordinary: a turreted mansion house atop a rather nondescript nine-floor tower block.
Its backstory is equally fantastical. Starck devised a novella, titled The Meticulous Life of Manfred Heler, in which the house, belonging to the eponymous main character, a lonely postwar inventor, is dramatically pushed upwards during an earthquake – hence the house on top of the tower block. The story also involves his love interest, a milkmaid named Rose, whose part in the story inspired the gentle pink decor of the bistro restaurant on the ground floor.
Bedrooms and corridors have an industrial vibe, with neutral tones and concrete walls, and Manfred’s bizarre scientific experiments are depicted in black-and-white photos. Light and colour come from the stained-glass windows – the work of the designer’s daughter, Ara Starck – which cast a beautiful glow across the wood-panelled restaurant and cocktail bar, set in Manfred’s house at the top.
As carefully designed as it is, it’s also affordable, and the food in both restaurants (mains from €23) is excellent. I tuck into white asparagus with hollandaise and cod with a light pea broth and saffron beurre blanc. When I try to read the novella, though, to get a better understanding, it proves utterly baffling – in keeping, perhaps, with this wonderfully curious city.
The trip was provided by Tourism Metz and the Maison Heler (doubles from €106 room-only). Dimanche Sans Fin runs until 25 Jan 2027 at Centre Pompidou-Metz