The Centre Pompidou will close its doors on Monday, 22 September 2025, for a five-year programme of works intended to address ageing infrastructure and reshape the visitor experience.
The Paris landmark, opened in 1977 and designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, has in recent months been progressively cleared across its nine public levels—120,000 square metres in total. In 2024 it received three million visitors. On Monday 22 September, its final day before closure, it will open from 11:00 to 23:00 with free entry to a final exhibition by the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans. From 22 to 25 October the museum will stage a programme of music and art to coincide with Paris’s contemporary art week.
The modern and contemporary art museum holds around 150,000 works. Some 2,000 pieces from the permanent collections—ranging from Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dalí to Francis Bacon and Marcel Duchamp—have already been relocated. The Bibliothèque publique d’information, which serves thousands of daily users, has moved to an alternative site in the capital pending reopening, currently targeted for 2030.
The renovation addresses several priorities: asbestos removal typical of 1970s construction; improved accessibility and safety; a complete interior reconfiguration; and enhanced climate protection, including new waterproofing. The institution has signalled an energy-efficiency target that would reduce the energy bill by about 40 per cent. The overall budget stands at €460 million, of which €280 million is to be financed by the French state. Of the remaining €180 million, €100 million is secured, with the balance expected to be raised over the coming five years. Funding sources include sponsorship, travelling exhibitions, international partnerships and brand licensing. Saudi Arabia has pledged €50 million towards the renovation. The Centre also points to forthcoming international satellites—Seoul in May 2026 and Brussels in November 2026—as part of its global strategy.
On completion, visitors to “Centre Pompidou 2030” will enter a redesigned public forum of 10,000 square metres across two levels, connecting performance, exhibition and cinema spaces. A large public terrace on the seventh floor will provide views over Paris. The museum will introduce a new display strategy emphasising the role of women artists, engaging with societal debates such as ecology and urban life, and integrating new technologies. The exterior envelope will be retained; the interiors will be renewed “from basement to top floor”.
During the closure, the programme will continue through loans and partnerships in France and abroad. Temporary exhibitions will be mounted at the Grand Palais, whose staged reopening from 2024 aligns with Beaubourg’s shutdown. A joint show on Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Pontus Hultén has led the calendar, with a major Matisse exhibition planned for spring 2026. The “Constellations” initiative is distributing works to institutions nationwide and internationally, extending public access during the hiatus.
Regional platforms are also in focus. Centre Pompidou-Metz has taken significant loans, including fragile pieces rarely authorised to travel—among them Sonia Delaunay’s painting on mattress ticking—and the contents of André Breton’s studio, leaving Paris for the first time. Earlier in 2025 the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco hosted a summer exhibition that regrouped twentieth-century works by colour rather than chronology, placing paintings from the 1910s alongside Pop art of the 1960s and contemporary pieces; the show attracted more than 75,000 visitors in less than two months.
Logistical preparations began in March with the removal of smaller, easily transportable works, followed by the extraction of large-scale installations by crane. These have been returned to storage ahead of the building works. In July, the final exhibition in the main gallery was dismantled and paintings from the “Paris Noir” show were examined, packed and sent back to lenders. For staff, the operation marks the end of a long-standing routine and the start of a transitional period, though the institution stresses that the closure is temporary.
The building itself—often referred to as Beaubourg—was conceived as an open, interdisciplinary forum. Its founding director, Pontus Hultén, set an approach that combined large-scale public engagement with an expansive definition of culture. The coming overhaul aims to retain that ethos while updating the facilities to contemporary standards. The site is expected to be listed on the French historic monuments inventory in 2026, enabling ministry oversight of the renovation and protecting the original architectural intent.
In parallel with the main chantier, a new collections centre in Massy (Essonne)—designed for storage, conservation and public display—is under way and scheduled to open at the end of 2026. The project is intended to provide optimal conditions for the care of works while extending access to audiences beyond central Paris, including school groups.
Project managers argue that a five-year closure is proportionate to the scope of intervention across a 70,000-square-metre building and to current expectations for accessibility, environmental performance and public provision. While the structure in the Beaubourg district will be shut until 2030, the institution’s collections and programmes will remain visible through a distributed network of loans, partnerships and outposts at home and overseas.
