The Folger Shakespeare Library on D.C.’s Capitol Hill estimates it will remain closed into 2024 due to ongoing renovations, after originally planning to reopen in November.
In a news release Wednesday, Director Mike Whitmore said “unforeseen hurdles” and the “careful attention” required to renovate historic builds are factors that have delayed the reopening.
That said, construction is wrapping up around the library’s theater. The 2023-24 Theatre season will be presented “largely as planned,” according to Whitmore, with more details to come by the end of September.
As for the rest of the renovations, Whitmore said the library will share a new opening date and information about reopening celebrations before the end of this year.
“We know that in pushing forward the reopening, we are setting the Folger up for success in the years ahead,” Whitmore said in the news release.
The library building, which boasts “the world’s largest Shakespeare collection,” closed for $38 million renovations in early March of 2020. Upcoming changes include a 12,000-square-foot pavilion, two new underground exhibition halls and sloping gardens with wheelchair ramps.
The original structure, designed by French American architect Paul Cret, was dedicated April 23, 1932 — what many scholars believe was Shakespeare’s birthday — and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.
Henry Folger, who became president of the Standard Oil Company in 1911, worked with his wife, Emily, to amass a large collection of Shakespeare artifacts. Toward the end of World War I, the couple began searching for a building to house their collection, and finally settled on the current location near the Library of Congress.
