4 Major Performance Spaces Undergoing Years-Long Renovations

The Barbican Centre in London, UK, announced its plans to undergo renovations beginning in 2028. Here are the other major performance venues closing for significant amounts of time.

It’s been reported that London’s Barbican Centre is set to fully close for about a year beginning in June 2028 so that a major renovation overhaul can take place, modernizing performance spaces, galleries, accessibility, and infrastructure.

Opened in 1982 on what was once London’s largest postwar redevelopment site, the Barbican Centre’s complex — which houses the London Symphony Orchestra — has fallen into serious disrepair over time. The newly approved redevelopment will upgrade performance and creative facilities, renew the building’s iconic brutalist interiors, and re-energize major public spaces including the Lakeside Terrace and the Conservatory. The cinemas and some ancillary spaces may remain open even while most of the campus is shut.

This isn’t the only globally important live performance arts venue undergoing major structural renovations.

Centre Pompidou (Paris, France)

One of the world’s most important modern art and cultural centers, Paris’s Centre Pompidou — with galleries, performance spaces, a library, and music research facilities — has closed as of September 2025 for an extensive renovation scheduled to last until about 2030. During this period its collections and programs are traveling and shared across partner institutions in France and internationally.

Full closure underway with work beginning in early 2026. Renovation includes asbestos removal, technical upgrades, accessibility improvements, and rethinking galleries and public spaces. Some aspects of the center (like the library BPI) have been partly relocated.

Gasteig (Munich, Germany)

Munich’s historic Gasteig cultural complex, home to the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and several cultural institutions, is currently closed for comprehensive structural overhaul and modernization upgrades and plans to remain so through at least 2035. A temporary venue (“Gasteig HP8”) is hosting activities in the meantime.

Spa Little Theater (Saratoga Springs, NY)

Part of the enormous Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) campus, this historic (not so little) performance hall temporarily closed in late 2025 for a major $12 million renovation improving accessibility, backstage and audience facilities, with reopening expected after about a year of work in late 2026.