Milwaukee Art Museum

Santiago Calatrava's brise soleil (from the rear)

During this Spring break, I had been to Rockford and Milwaukee with few friends. It was fun. We visited Milwaukee Art Museum(MAM), one of the best architectural piece designed by the famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Below are few pictures, I had taken at that time.

Located on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is really a beautiful architectural piece.

Santiago Calatrava's brise soleil (Front view)

The museum's history began in 1888 when the Milwaukee Art Association was created by a group of German panorama artists and local businessmen; its first home was the Layton Art Gallery. In the early 1900s the Milwaukee Art Institute was founded. The Milwaukee Art Center (now the MAM) was formed when these two groups joined in 1957.

The MAM's permanent holdings contain an important collection of Old Masters and 19th-century and 20th-century artwork, as well as some of the nation's best collections of German Expressionism, folk and Haitian art, American decorative arts, and post-1960 American art. The museum holds a large number of works by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Milwaukee Art Museum

The MAM recently gained international recognition with the construction of the new white concrete Quadracci Pavilion, designed by Santiago Calatrava (his first American commission), which opened on May 4, 2001. The structure contains a moveable, wing-like brise soleil (pictured above) which opens up for a wingspan of 217 feet during the day, folding over the tall, arched structure at night or during inclement weather.

Quadracci Pavilion (interior)

Quadracci Pavilion (interior)

The building has since become a symbol for the city of Milwaukee. The galleries themselves are contained in the MAM's older building, a 1957 Eero Saarinen commission (along with the Milwaukee County War Memorial) added to by Kahler, Fitzhugh and Scott of Milwaukee in 1975.