Many people visit Paris with the sole purpose of museum-hopping. We can’t blame them: the city is home to many unmissable museums, not to mention one of the most famous paintings to ever exist (we’re talking about you, Mona). But from 2025, there will be a hole in the city’s museum landscape, as Paris is preparing to say a temporary farewell to contemporary art museum the Centre Pompidou.
The museum, home to the largest modern art collection in Europe, will stop accepting visitors so that it can undergo a $283.6 million renovation. French officials have shared that this is to address the significant damage the building has suffered since being built in the 1970s. The museum also wants to move its atelier Brancusi, the former studio of the famous modernist sculptor, to the heart of the main building, and refurbish its library.
Originally, the renovations were meant to take off in 2023 and complete in time for the beloved institution’s 50th anniversary in 2027. Sadly, schedules didn’t work out as planned, and the closure will happen in the summer of 2025 instead.
If you’re planning to be in Paris before then, make sure you schedule a stop to check out the museum’s vast collection – rivalled only in scope by New York’s MoMA – before the Centre Pompidou shuts its doors for half a decade.
If you do miss out on visiting the Centre Pompidou, there’s plenty to do in Paris during your next visit. You could stop by the Paris Olympics next summer, for instance. Or, you could plan your trip to coincide with the reopening of the famous Notre Dame, which is set to happen in December 2024.
Did you hear that Serge Gainsbourg’s Paris home is finally opening to the public this year?
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