Kennedy Center to Undergo Two-Year Renovation Starting July

Mon Feb 02 2026 16:11:32 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. will be closed for two years starting July 4, 2026, according to President Trump. The renovation comes amid controversies surrounding its name change and artist cancellations.

President Trump announced that the Kennedy Center will close on July 4, 2026, for a two-year renovation as part of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. The closure follows backlash after the center's name was changed to incorporate Trump's name, prompting several performers to cancel events. The announcement includes plans for a grand reopening and the completion of financing for the renovation.

The Kennedy Center in Washington DC will be closed for a two-year renovation beginning in July, US President Donald Trump has announced.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday that the center would close on July 4 this year in honour of the 250th Anniversary of our Country.

The move follows several artists cancelling performances at the storied institution after it was recently renamed as the Trump Kennedy Center.

Shortly after taking office, the president fired several of the board members at the center and replaced them with allies, who then voted to make Trump chairman of the board.

The new board renamed the institution the Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in December. New signage appeared on the building's exterior the following day.

Several musical acts, including Wicked composer Steven Schwartz and a group called Doug Varone and the Dancers, cancelled performances at the center in the following weeks because of the name change.

On Thursday, the venue hosted a premiere screening of a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump.

The US president said there would be a scheduled grand reopening of the facility and that the renovations had already been financed.

Trump stated, I have determined that The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for construction, revitalisation, and complete rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest performing arts facility of its kind, anywhere in the world.\

In other words, if we don't close, the quality of construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many events using the facility, will be much longer.

Trump has criticized the physical state of the center and worked with the US Congress to allocate more than $250 million to rebuild it, part of many renovation projects he has taken on in his second term.

Some US lawmakers and legal scholars have argued that because the center was named in a 1964 law, Congress must have a say on any name change. In December, Democratic US Representative Joyce Beatty filed a lawsuit seeking to remove Trump's name for that reason.

Furthermore, members of President John F Kennedy's family have expressed their disapproval. Joe Kennedy III, a former US Representative and grandnephew of the late president, stated that the venue was a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law.

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