Livening Up the Elys

AS French officials nervously led them on a preview tour to see the new decor of the Elysee Palace, newsmen fairly gaped in astonishment. In one stroke, the salons where President Georges Pompidou does much of his entertaining had been transformed from pre-Bastille to post-Kubrick. Gone from the palace (built in 1718) were the murky frescoes, the gilt-edged mirrors, the priceless Louis XV and Louis XVI furniture. The anteroom where guests are greeted is now a blast of color and light, designed by Israeli Op Artist Yaacov Agam and dominated by his wall-size "kinetic" murals.

A corridor with a gently undulating ceiling leads to a sitting room filled with abstract art, then a smoking room whose circular walls flow inward at one point to form a cluster of seats in the shape of half-moons. The stark white dining room, which seats 24, shines under a luminous ceiling studded with 7,000 glass stalactites. The lighting can be altered from very bright to intime. Out of view but also done over is the ancient kitchen; heretofore state banquets have been catered affairs. The French press unanimously applauded Pompidou's devastating coup de main. Someone recalled that Arthur Rimbaud, one of Pompidou's favorite poets, told Frenchmen: "One must be absolutely modern." That was back in 1873.

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