Gianfranco Franchini (December 17th 1938 - April 21th 2009) was an Italian architect who is most well known for his collaboration with Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano to build the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In contrast to Rogers and Piano, Franchini did not use the Pompidou project to launch an international career. He preferred to go back to his native Genoa where he established a small practice focusing on smaller scale cultural projects. Projects included eight library buildings, including five in Genoa, between 1985 and 1998. He organised the gallery spaces for important exhibitions of Van Dyck and Chagall 2004. In recent years he was busy with rebuilding of the Museum of Jewish History in Genoa, celebrating the city's rich Jewish heritage. However he remained in close contact with the Pompidou team and he later collaborated with Rogers again in the design for a library in Turin.