The Picasso Museum in Paris will close for repairs from Sunday for a long period

Paris - The Picasso Museum in Paris, one of the major attractions for visitors to the French capital, will be closed for more than two years starting Sunday due to renovations. It is expected to reopen in February 2012. During the closure, the museum will also completely halt loans of its works, the AFP agency announced today.
    Renovations were originally set to begin last year and finish in 2010. However, the work on the facade is only now being completed, and repairs and adjustments to the interiors are next in line. They were necessitated by both the wear and tear of existing structures and new standards regarding visitor reception and ensuring access for individuals with reduced mobility.
    “We will take this opportunity to go further and adjust the museum to the needs of a changing audience. After its opening in 1985, the audience was much more elitist. Now we have a greater responsibility when it comes to educating the youth,” said the museum's director, Anne Baldassari.
    The museum is located in the historic Marais district of Paris in a 17th-century baroque palace. It owns about 5,000 works by Picasso, but due to lack of space, only exhibits a portion of them. It attracts about half a million visitors each year, 65 percent of whom are foreigners. The director hopes to increase the number of visitors to between 800,000 and one million annually.