Beaubourg works revolves around projects inspired by the book "La soi-disant utopie du centre beaubourg" (Editions Entente, 1976), written by Swiss sociologist Albert Meister under the pseudonym Gustave Affeulpin. The book's publication coincided with the opening of the Centre Beaubourg in Paris. The fictional story imagines a radical libertarian space seventy-six floors beneath the newly opened centre of French culture, providing a platform for alternative ways of living, working, and creating.

Luca Frei first encountered the book in 1994 through the Italian translation ("Sotto il beaubourg," Eleuthera, 1988) at an anarchist book fair in Lugano. Later, during a residency at the Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art in Malmö, the artist revisited the book through installations, graphic works, and performances.

In 2007, commissioned by Casco Art Institute and Book Works, the artist published the first English translation of the original text, introducing it to a broader audience. This project aimed to revitalise a significant cultural treatise and reflect on the artist's subjective role in transferring ideas across cultural frameworks and eras.