Despite its five-year closure, the Centre Pompidou will live on in the capital and beyond. The Centre Pompidou will also be listed as a Monument Historique in 2026.
The Centre Pompidou will close its doors to the general public on September 22 for five years of renovation work. During this time, the works will move around and live in other museums and institutions, while the Museum of Modern Art will be listed as a historical monument in 2026, its president Laurent Le Bon announced to Le Figaro.
It's an accolade for this very modern, colorful building, with its large pipes, which stands in stark contrast to the more sober Parisian structures that have long been decried. When it was inaugurated in 1977, and long before, its construction was not much appreciated by defenders of the capital's beauty, and even in 2025, the work designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers is not unanimously acclaimed, but its collections are widely appreciated the world over.
It's very rare for a building to become a historic monument so soon after its construction, and especially while the architect is still alive. This is a welcome development, as it will bring in state subsidies for renovation work, but it also means that the building's architecture must be scrupulously respected for each renovation.