The Center Pompidou in Paris has announced that it will close its doors from 2025 to 2030 while its remarkable house designed by Richard Rogers/Renzo Piano undergoes a major renovation and expansion. The arts journal reports that an architectural competition for the project opened today. Six submissions will be selected at the end of the year, with the winner announced in 2024. The institution will begin phasing out in fall 2024, eventually closing in summer 2025. Work will begin early in the year. the following year, with completion and reopening expected in 2030. The French state is paying for the 262 million euro ($284 million) renovation; the Pompidou is still looking for 160 million euros in additional funding for cultural projects.
As part of the planned restoration, the museum will refresh its galleries and expand to more than 200,000 square feet of space below the Gallery Plaza which was previously used for parking buses. This area will be used to house cinemas that can be used as exhibition spaces. On the ground floor, a “new generation center” will arrive on one side, while on the other, previously occupied by two galleries, will host a large restaurant. The institution’s Public Information Library, which occupies three floors, will remain in place, as will the National Museum of Modern Art; this space, which extends over two floors, will house the Brancusi workshop. Additionally, a 16,000 square foot open-air terrace on the seventh floor of the museum will be open to the public for the first time.
Pompidou will partner with the Grand Palais and the Louvre on various projects during the closure, which partly coincides with Pompidou’s fiftieth anniversary, in 2027. The collaboration with the Louvre results in the presentation of works from the Pompidou collection in the different departments of the museum. The first planned installation of these works will focus on works from the Objets d’Art department of the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The French museum is also plan a location in Jersey City, its first foray into North America. Originally scheduled for 2024, the satellite’s opening was recently pushed back to 2026 due to Covid-19 and contract issues, according to the Jersey Newspaper.
