Laurent Le Bon, president of the Center Pompidou in Paris, was reappointed to this position for three years and will have the mission of “rethinking the reopening of the historic site”, closed for work until 2030, announced the Minister of Culture Catherine Pgard on Thursday July 23 in a press release.
The dilapidated Center Pompidou, an iconic Parisian building with multicolored tubular architecture inaugurated in 1977, closed its doors in September 2025 for five years of renovation. It houses the most important modern art museum in the world with MoMA in New York.
At its head since 2021, Laurent Le Bon, whose reappointment by the Head of State was ratified by the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, “will have the fundamental mission of rethinking, alongside the teams (…) the reopening of the historic site”, underlines the ministry.
“Through this collective reflection, it will be a question of reaffirming the Center Pompidou as a living place, where art, creation and the public dialogue with the same intensity as in its beginnings, while anticipating the cultural expectations of tomorrow,” he adds.
“A unique project”
In the short term, the Pompidou Center will inaugurate, at the end of 2026, the “Pompidou KANAL Center in Brussels”. Other antennas are currently in preparation. Laurent Le Bon “will also lead the opening in 2027 of the Center Pompidou Francilien – Fabrique de l’art in Massy (Essonne, Editor’s note), a unique project designed as both an exhibition space and a place of conservation,” according to the ministry.
Since the building closed in the fall, the “Constellation” program has made it possible to “bring the works (…) beyond the walls of the museum”, “through numerous partnerships in France and internationally”. Furthermore, Emmanuel Kasarhérou, president of the Musée du Quai-Branly – Jacques Chirac for six years, was also reappointed by decision of the President of the Republic, the ministry announced in a separate press release.
The establishment which, in recent years, “has positioned itself as a major player in museum research, and in particular on questions of provenance and restitution” of looted works, “will have to maintain its policy of international influence, restitution of cultural property and development of public policy”.
