A New Jersey mayor, the governor of the state and the Centre Pompidou in Paris announced today that a new museum aligned with the French institution will open in early 2024 in Jersey City and serve as a “multidisciplinary art laboratory” for cultural and educational programming for the area.
The mayor of Jersey City, Steven M. Fulop; the governor, Phil Murphy; and the Centre Pompidou say that the new museum will feature exhibitions with works from the Pompidou’s Modern and contemporary art collections as well as a range of events “at the crossroads of all disciplines”. They did not release further details on programming. The Pompidou in Paris is scheduled to shut from late 2023 until sometime in 2027 for renovations of its antiquated infrastructure.
The new museum will be created in the 58,000 sq. ft Pathside Building in Jersey City, built in 1912 and situated in Journal Square, near many transportation lines with routes including a 15-minute PATH journey to Lower Manhattan and another of similar length to Newark's Penn Station. The hope is that the facility will draw visitors from across the New York region.
Jersey City acquired the building in 2017, and the design of the new museum will be overseen by the renowned architectural firm OMA and Jason Long. It is the Centre Pompidou’s first collaboration on a new site in North America. The Pompidou already has sites in Brussels; Metz, France; Shanghai; and Malaga, Spain.
While details on the future museum’s goals and programming were sparse, Jersey City’s mayor said the project would reinforce the area’s status within the New York metropolitan area’s cultural firmament. “As the largest modern and contemporary art collection in Europe, the Centre Pompidou is the perfect partner to carry out our vision and solidify Journal Square as a regional anchor for the arts,” Fulop said in a statement.