Pompidou announces five-year closure and open call for architects

Paris' Pompidou Center has announced it will close from 2025 to 2030, while its stunning Richard Rogers/Renzo Piano-designed home undergoes a major renovation and expansion. The Art News Paper reports that an architectural competition has opened for the project. Six entries will be selected at the end of the year, with the winner announced in 2024. The institution will begin to gradually close in the fall of 2024, finally closing its doors in the summer of 2025. Construction will begin at the beginning of the following year, with completion and reopening planned for 2030. The French state will pay €262 million (US$284 million) for the renovation; the Pompidou is still seeking €160 million in additional funding for cultural projects.

As part of the planned restoration, the museum will renovate its galleries and expand to over 200,000 square feet of space under the gallery square that was formerly used for bus parking. This area will be used to house cinemas that can function as exhibition spaces. On the ground floor, on one side there will be a “new generation centre”, while the other, previously occupied by two galleries, will house a large restaurant. The institution's Bibliothèque Publique d'Information, which occupies three floors, will remain on site, as will the Musée national d'art modern. This space, which extends over two floors, will house the Brancusi workshop. In addition, a 16,000-square-foot outdoor terrace on the museum's seventh floor will open to the public for the first time.

Pompidou has joined in partnership with the Grand Palais and the Louvre on several projects during the closure, which partially coincides with the Pompidou's fiftieth anniversary in 2027. The collaboration with the Louvre involves the presentation of works from the Pompidou Collection in the various departments of the museum. The first planned installation of these works will center on the works of the Objets d'Art Department of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The French museum is also planning a location in Jersey City, its first foray into North America. Originally planned for 2024, the satellite's opening was recently pushed back to 2026 due to Covid-19 and contractual issues, according to the Jersey Journal.