Saudi Arabia to Contribute $52.6 Million to Centre Pompidou Renovation
134Dec. 15, 2024
Saudi Arabia is set to put €50 million ($52.6 million) toward the €262 million restoration and expansion of theCentre Pompidouin Paris, per a ten-accord package agreed to in a partnership established between the Gulf state and France. The news was announced earlier this month by French culture minister Rachida Dati and her Saudi counterpart, Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud. The Pompidou, whichrevealedits refurbishment plans back in May 2023, will continue to mount exhibitions off-site while remaining closed for construction between 2025 and 2030.
Nine other cultural agreements were announced. Among them were the French promise to help Saudi Arabia develop several museum and heritage projects, including a new photography museum in Riyadh that will be connected to programs at the National School of Photography in Arles. France has also said that its appropriate cultural bodies will help restore Saudi heritage sites, including royal palaces, while its national library will aid in the digitization, conservation, and promotion of Saudi collections. The French National Institute for Archaeological Research will help inaugurate archaeological projects in the planned city of Qiddiya.
The cultural accord between France and Saudi Arabia arrives on the heels of a 2018 agreement between the French government of Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that led to the establishment of AlUla—a northwestern Saudi desert region along the historic Silk Road—as a cultural and tourism hub. That agreement resulted in the formation of the Paris-based Afalula agency, which places “French know-how” in the service of AlUla’s development. The recently announced partnership and the 2018 accord are both part of a broader initiative known as Vision 2030, which bin Salman launched in 2016 in an effort to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil and develop a more progressive cultural profile for the country, which has an execrable record of human rights abuses.