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The Pompidou Centre closes for a bold reinvention
- Jessie S. Martin
- Sep 26
- 8 min read
Published on 26 September 2025
Reinventing Beaubourg
This autumn, Paris’s Pompidou Centre enters a decisive interval in its history: a comprehensive transformation set in motion in 2020 with the backing of the French Ministry of Culture, one that requires the complete closure of the building to allow, among other things, full asbestos removal. Far from a routine upgrade, the institution frames the pause as a rare chance to rethink the Centre from the ground up and to bring its radical spirit forward into the twenty-first century.
From the outset, the message is clear: this is not expansion for its own sake, nor an exercise in architectural bravura. It is a careful, eco-responsible re-composition of what already exists — preserving the essence of the original manifesto while adapting it to today’s needs. The plan includes reconfiguring key spaces to host new cultural formats, reaffirm the Centre’s multidisciplinary DNA, and re-present Europe’s largest collection of modern and contemporary art with renewed clarity. Tellingly, the Atelier Brancusi will be reintegrated into the Centre, restoring the visibility of a studio that remains central to the institution’s identity. Equally central is a commitment to hospitality and access: simplifying circulation, improving legibility, and placing accessibility at the heart of the project so that all publics — including visitors with sensory, physical or cognitive disabilities — are welcomed with dignity.
The stakes of renovation
If the 1977 building embodied a bold grammar of structure and services turned inside-out, the 2030 project seeks to re-open those transparencies and renew the dialogue with the city. Nowhere is this more visible than in the creation of the Agora, a vast multidisciplinary platform carved from former underground parking at level –1. Directly connected to the Forum through an enlarged opening, the Agora will host two theatres, two cinemas, four flexible “boxes” for cross-disciplinary exhibitions, a central stage linked to stepped seating, and a café — an urban stage where visual art, live performance, film, talks and debates interweave. It is a structural answer to a curatorial conviction: that the Centre’s vitality lies in friction and encounter.
The environmental brief is equally explicit. After five decades of intensive use, the building will undergo a heritage ‘surgery’ of high technical complexity: de-asbestos, fresh air systems, fire stability, structural audits and a complete overhaul of electrical and heating infrastructure. Every technical choice is directed at significantly reducing energy consumption — with a target of about a 40% reduction in electricity use, a major step for the Centre’s environmental performance. In parallel, the process for listing the Pompidou as a historic monument has been formally initiated, a recognition of its significance in the global architectural canon even as it undergoes transformation.
The library and the city
Much of the project’s civic meaning crystallises in the Bibliothèque publique d’information (Bpi). The design imagines a through-perspective that links interior and exterior, fostering a constant conversation with Paris. An animated, forum-like welcome area and collections that remain accessible along the visitor’s path aim to encourage serendipity and exchange. Modular islands punctuate the open plan, supporting reading, consultation and sharing, while a mix of re-used furnishings and new, low-rise pieces enhances transparency and aligns with the exposed structural ceiling — a material ethics to match the Centre’s original frankness. Taken together, these moves recast the Bpi not as an auxiliary service but as a civic core, an everyday cultural space where learning and art meet.
The project also creates a dedicated pole for new generations, uniting the Bpi and the Centre’s public programmes to re-invent cultural practices for children, teenagers and young adults. The aim is not to ring-fence them but to offer formats and workshops that reflect evolving social behaviour and media habits — an investment in future audiences that keeps faith with the Centre’s long tradition of innovation in education.
A constellation of authors
Behind the scenes, the team is deliberately plural. AIA Life Designers serves as technical lead (architecte mandataire, technical scope), responsible for the orchestration of the engineering “surgery”. Moreau Kusunoki carries the architectural and cultural vision, with Frida Escobedo Studio as associated designer — a collaboration that pairs Paris-based refinement and structural clarity with a sensibility attuned to time, light and civic ritual. The tone of their joint intent is telling: to listen to the building, to lighten the palimpsest of accumulated interventions, and to restore legibility, transparency and generosity without denying the prototype spirit that remains part of Beaubourg’s DNA.
For Moreau Kusunoki, the task is to free the original coherence inscribed by Piano, Rogers and their engineering peers — not to fix the building in amber, but to return it to liberty: to dust down, clarify and reopen, revealing moments of pause and resonance that future generations can re-invent. In parallel, Frida Escobedo’s note reads the Centre’s “structural alphabet” and “infrastructural grammar” as the basis for a renewed vocabulary of openness and exchange, amplifying the monumentality of the frame while offering clarity and calm across the floors and towards the city. The Bpi and the New Generation pole, she argues, are the Centre’s true civic heart — the proof that Pompidou’s radical vision was always about culture as an everyday experience.
In sum, the first movement of “Pompidou 2030” sketches a future that is less about novelty than recognition: of an architectural language that still speaks, of publics that have diversified, and of a city whose cultural metabolism has only quickened. The renovation reads as a return to first principles — structure made visible, culture made porous — recalibrated to an era of ecological responsibility and common access.
Spaces reimagined
Transparency and clarity
The guiding principles of the project, as set out by Moreau Kusunoki, are not about rewriting the Pompidou but about making its original generosity legible once again. Physical and visual porosity is central: new transparencies open up connections between spaces and towards the surrounding city. Light penetrates deeper into the plateaux, tracing paths that become more readable and welcoming. In effect, the city is invited to continue through the building — a conscious extension of the street into the cultural heart of Beaubourg.
The design also restores clarity of movement. What has at times become a confusing circulation pattern is simplified into fluid journeys, naturally legible for first-time visitors and seasoned audiences alike. The Pompidou was conceived in an age that celebrated speed, animation and the diffusion of information. Today, in an era of digital overload and fragmented attention, the Centre’s ambition is inverted: it becomes a place where mediation, human interaction and physical presence regain primacy.
Activation of spaces
This renewed legibility allows forgotten or underused corners of the Centre to be reactivated. Transparency reveals potential, variety of uses becomes possible, and visual cross-views reconnect visitors across different zones. The goal is once again to affirm the Pompidou as a living platform, mixing publics, activities and events in the spirit of the original project.
Equally important is the dialogue with the existing structure. Moreau Kusunoki insists on a posture of respect, restraint and continuity rather than rupture. Materials and vocabulary are chosen in resonance with Piano and Rogers’ 1977 language. The result is not a new Pompidou but a revitalised one — an institution renewed without losing the living energy that has always come from its public.
The Piazza
At the urban threshold lies the Piazza, always central to the Centre’s identity as a porous, outward-facing institution. The renovation aims to fully integrate this space into the city’s fabric. While the upper square has long been lively, the project activates its underused lower zones, with ramps for accessibility and redesigned flows that open the Piazza to multiple sides. Café terraces spill naturally into the public realm, restoring the porousness envisaged in the 1970s.
The Piazza will continue to host spontaneous street culture — performers, dancers, poets, activists — but now with renewed attention to inclusivity and access. It is not just a forecourt but a theatre of urban life, a democratic stage where formal and informal culture coexist.
Technical transformations
Behind these cultural gestures stand ambitious technical interventions. Entire façades will be replaced: the existing asbestos-laden cladding, fragile and thermally inefficient, gives way to safer, better insulated modules while maintaining the clarity of the original design. Energy systems and service networks are comprehensively rethought to favour efficiency and durability. Fire safety, accessibility, and working conditions for staff are all brought up to contemporary standards. Vertical circulation is renewed, with new lifts and escalators at the heart of the Forum. The building, weathered by time, corrosion and constant use, undergoes a structural “reset” that secures its future without altering its DNA.
The Forum and the Agora
At the Centre’s heart, the Forum is re-imagined as a social and cultural stage. The arrival sequence is now intuitive: the famous escalators along the façade are visible from the entrance, and the Forum opens directly to the Agora below via an enlarged central void. Together they form a three-level volume where circulation, performance and everyday encounters flow into each other.
Gradual steps connect Forum and Agora, reinforcing the theatrical and social quality of the space. Visitors can pause informally, or the steps can host programmed events. Public services — ticketing, information, cloakrooms — are now placed logically at the entrance, anchoring intuitive journeys whether towards the Galleries, the Bpi, the Agora or the New Generation pole.
The Agora’s spine runs north–south, hosting foyers for theatres and cinemas, circulation paths, café areas and flexible furniture. Its “boxes” can be subdivided or opened for temporary exhibitions and installations, while the stepped seating descending from the Forum binds the two spaces. Façade modifications, including glazed modules replacing opaque fireproof panels, draw daylight deeper into the interior. Obstructive elements — central lifts, kiosks — are removed, opening new perspectives towards the city.
The New Generation pole
To the north, the Pôle Nouvelle Génération highlights the Centre’s youngest audiences — infants, children, teenagers and families. With attention to care and hospitality, the design provides a joyful, playful atmosphere that supports shared discovery of books, art and creative practice.
On the lower level, minimalist large spaces allow children to roam freely. Families access directly from the Forum via a clear northward axis that simplifies orientation. It is conceived as a complete, pleasant experience for families, ensuring that the Centre is not only accessible but welcoming at the earliest stages of cultural life.
The Public Information Library (Bpi)
The Bibliothèque publique d’information also undergoes a profound redefinition. Already exceptional in size and mission, it is re-cast as a singular environment for learning and encounter, reinforcing its role as a national library. The design introduces a new north–south opening, enabled by fire safety upgrades, granting panoramic views of Paris and a sense of permeability through the building.
New furnishings combine re-use of existing elements, rich with memory and attachment, with original designs that refresh the overall atmosphere. Low-rise shelves and seating echo the exposed blue pipes and structural beams, maintaining horizontal transparency between floor and ceiling. More than ever, the Bpi will stand as a civic core, an open stage for collective knowledge and cultural practice.
The project is steered by an international constellation of voices. At its heart are the architects Moreau Kusunoki, joined in association with the Mexican studio of Frida Escobedo, whose combined sensibilities bring both Parisian refinement and a global outlook. They work in close dialogue with French specialists such as AIA Life Designers, ensuring that the engineering and environmental demands of the renovation remain inseparable from its cultural ambition. It is a partnership that mirrors the very ethos of the Pompidou: collaboration across borders, disciplines and scales. Rather than imposing a new identity, their task is to listen to the building, to free it from decades of accumulated interventions, and to restore the clarity and generosity that once shocked Paris in 1977.
Seen against the wider history of the Centre — from Georges Pompidou’s visionary decision in 1969 to unite a museum and a vast public library on the Beaubourg site, through Piano and Rogers’ radical design, to the later satellites in Metz, Málaga, Shanghai and soon Seoul, Brussels, Paraná (Curitiba, Brazil) and Jersey City — the current project reads as both continuity and renewal. As the fiftieth anniversary approaches in 2028, just two years before reopening, the symbolism becomes powerful: a building once dismissed as a provocation now pauses to reinvent itself, still faithful to its mission of reinventing the encounter between art, city and public life.
