Milwaukee Art Museum - Milwaukee, United States

The Milwaukee Art Museum has become a symbol of modern Milwaukee thanks to the eye-catching Quadracci Pavilion, designed by Santiago Calatrava in 2001. It is pure Calatrava! Modern, bright, white steel and glass, impossible to miss.

Outside: With its movable wings expanded to their full, the building looks either like a large white bird landing on Lake Michigan or the tail of a white whale emerging from the water. It is superb. The Museum’s signature wings, the Burke Brise Soleil, form a movable sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan. The Brise Soleil is made up of 72 steel fins. It takes 3.5 minutes for the wings to open or close. Sensors on the fins continually monitor wind speed and direction; whenever winds exceed 23 mph for more than 3 seconds, the wings close automatically. And given that you are on Lake Michigan, you need some luck to see the wings open.

Inside: The gateway to the museum is the grand Windhover Hall, awash in white with marble flooring, filled with light through a front window and a glass ceiling located directly below the wings. On a sunny day, you need sunglasses! It is Calatrava’s postmodern interpretation of a Gothic Cathedral, complete with flying buttresses, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and a central nave topped by a 90-foot-high glass roof. The hall’s front is shaped like the prow of a ship, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking over Lake Michigan. Adjoining the central hall are two tow-arched promenades, with expansive views of the lake, that remind me of a spaceship. Don't miss the Cafe' Calatrava, right below the main hall. It offers superb views on the lake with floor-to-ceiling windows in a modern design environment.There’s art, too. Once you have finished admiring the building, you can spend a good couple of hours in the Museum’s permanent collection which includes Old Masters, 19th and 20th century art, American decorative arts, German Expressionism, folk and Haitian art, and American art after 1960. Modern highlights include Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso, Jóan Miro, Mark Rothko, Robert Gober, Roy Litchtenstein, Lucio Fontana, and Andy Warhol. The museum holds the beautiful Monet's Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect, and Caillebotte's Boating on the Yerres, with its excellent water reflections. (Last visited 05/2006)