Seoul’s Centre Pompidou, Three Years in the Making, Will Open in June
Centre Pompidou Hanwha is set to open in Seoul on June 4, following three years of planning, with the date marking the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Korea. The outpost is a joint initiative with the Hanwha Foundation of Culture and will be housed in Tower 63, designed by French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte; French President Emmanuel Macron visited the site on April 3 with culture minister Catherine Pégard and Centre Pompidou president Laurent Le Bon. Under a four-year agreement formalized in summer 2023, Hanwha will host eight monographic exhibitions (two per year) drawn from the Centre Pompidou collection and license the museum’s brand for four years with an option to extend; Le Monde reported Hanwha paid €20 million (about $23.1 million) for the brand license. The expansion comes as the Centre Pompidou’s Paris campus is closed for a five-year renovation scheduled to finish in 2030, and follows the institution’s February cancellation of a planned Jersey City satellite amid reports of a $255 million city deficit, with Mayor James Solomon saying, “We will not be doing Pompidou… It is dead.”
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This story was covered in Restitution Shockwaves and Museums Under Pressure