The Centre Pompidou and the Brussels-Capital Region have signed a memorandum of understanding to open a Modern and contemporary art museum in a former Citroën building in the Belgian capital, northwest of the city’s centre, due to open in 2020. The news was announced at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, 29 September by the museum’s director, Serge Lasvignes, and the Minister-President of the Brussels region, Rudi Vertvoort. The region acquired the 16,000 sq. m Art Deco-style building in October 2015.
A “prefiguration” phase of the Pompidou-Brussels partnership—the institution still does not have a name, for instance—is planned to wrap up at the end of July 2017. This includes a tender for architects to redesign the site into a functional arts centre, to be launched by the end of this year. The region and the Centre Pompidou will sign a final partnership agreement once more concrete details have been decided. The Brussels project will be led by Yves Goldstein, Vertvoort’s chief of staff.
The Centre Pompidou plans to loan works from its 120,000-strong collection, the largest of Modern and contemporary art in Europe. Lasvignes said that the Pompidou would advise the new institution on “the acquisition strategy for permanent collections and the development of the future museum”. It will also collaborate on programming. While the museum is not expected to open until 2020, the first temporary exhibition may take place in 2018, according to a joint press release.
It is estimated that the new art space will have a direct economic impact of €2.4m to €4.8m per year, based on three “scenarios” for visitor figures, ranging from 500,000 to 1 million per year, according to the press release.
Vertvoort first announced plans to turn the Citroën building into a Modern and contemporary art centre in 2014. Press reports that year said that the centre would house works from the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, which Vertvoort declined to confirm to The Art Newspaper at the time.
