Palais de Tokyo to Close in 2027, and Its Temporary Home Is Already Contested

The Palais de Tokyo, one of Europe's largest contemporary art centers, is preparing for a major interruption. The Paris institution, housed since its 2002 opening in the west wing of a concrete building erected for the 1937 International Exposition, will close in July 2027 to undertake a program of repairs, French daily Libération reports, in an item picked up by Artforum.

With no permanent collection, the Palais de Tokyo has built its reputation as a production platform for living artists, favoring commissions, site-specific installations and performance alongside its exhibitions. Closing the building means finding an interim venue if programming is to continue during the works. That is exactly where the friction lies: the location under consideration is, according to the newspaper, hotly disputed.

The institution had already carried out work on its building in recent years. Its raw, deliberately unfinished interiors are central to its architectural identity, but the 1937 structure — shared with the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, which occupies the east wing — carries the familiar burdens of twentieth-century heritage: code compliance, energy performance and visitor safety.

Relocating a cultural institution during construction is rarely a purely technical matter. It involves substantial public funding, the continuity of public access, and political decisions about who gets to occupy sought-after urban sites. With closure set for the summer of 2027, there remains room for negotiation before activity halts on the quai de New York.

Neither the length of the construction period nor the cost of the operation has been disclosed at this stage.

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Written by the ADM desk based on Artforum. Read the original article for the full story.