Shanghai, Oct. 11 -- POMPIDOU Art Center in France has selected a 98-year-old villa in Shanghai as its first showroom in China, Oriental Morning Post said today, citing French media reports.

The future Pompidou in Shanghai, covering 10,000 square meters, will feature artwork from the 20th to 21st century of both France and China. It will include a children's gallery, library, art store, caféand a restaurant, the report said.

The original Pompidou in France, which debuted in January 1977, is a collection of modern and contemporary creations, where the visual arts rub shoulders with theatre, music, cinema, literature and spoken word. Its sensitive location in Paris' Latin Quarter added to its development into a top arts center of Europe.

Renzo Piano, the Pompidou's Italian designer, conceptualized the giant block wrapped in steel and glass pipes, which aroused a huge dispute in the local architecture circle at that time. Piano moved all of the buildings interior pillars, stairs and even the pipes to the outside, to make more space for the interior.

The official construction contract of the new showroom in Shanghai will be signed at the end of this month when French President Chirac visits China, an official surnamed Zhou with the Consult France to Shanghai confirmed with the Morning Post. However, she refused to release the exact signing date.

The showroom, which is scheduled to open in 2009, will settle in an old villa near the crossroad of Huaihai Rd and Songshan Rd.