The price of visiting the Corcoran Gallery of Art will drop from $10 to zero today, as the D.C. institution prepares to merge with the National Gallery and George Washington University.

Free admission to the gallery's Flagg building will last until October 1, when the museum is expected to close for renovations. A judge last week approved a plan to hand over the Corcoran's art operations to the National Gallery and school to GW. This will mean the gallery's 17,000 piece collection will be broken up between several museums.

"The National Gallery will renovate the second-floor gallery spaces in the Flagg building,
which will house the Legacy Gallery of important works from the Corcoran collection, as
well as special exhibitions of modern and contemporary art," according to a release. Classes at what's now known as GW’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design begin this month.

The museum, located at 500 Seventeenth Street NW, is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.