Paris | The Center Pompidou, one of the most important modern art museums in the world, will close from 2023 to 2027 for major restoration work, French Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot announced on Monday.
“There were two options on the table, one being to restore the Center while keeping it open, the other being full closure. I chose the second, because it turned out to be shorter in time, and a little less expensive, ”declared Ms. Bachelot to Le Figaro.
The Center Pompidou, National Museum of Modern Art, inaugurated in 1977 in Paris, will reopen in 2027 for its 50th anniversary, after modernization and complete asbestos removal.
Work will start at the end of 2023 and end at the end of 2026, and the center will reopen in early 2027, the Center Pompidou told us.
Serge Lasvignes, president of the Center Pompidou, announced the news Tuesday to the unions. The museum employs just over 1,000 people.
This work had become essential because of the corrosion and wear that affected the huge building, which houses very important collections of modern and contemporary art, vast exhibition spaces and a very large library in particular.
They will make it possible to “proceed with the total asbestos removal of the building and to completely renovate it in order to meet the safety standards, the technical and energy standards in force as well as the accessibility obligations for the handicapped public”, specified the public establishment. .
Opened in 1977 on the project of architects Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini, the museum has never seen work of this magnitude.