Building a Masterpiece: Milwaukee Art Museum

The Milwaukee Museum of Art is an architectural landmark with three buildings designed by three legendary architects: Eero Saarinen, David Kahler, and Santiago Calatrava. This spectacular volume celebrates the reopening of the museum with its $10 million Quadracci Pavilion; the new addition designed by world-famous Spanish architect, Calatrava. The Pavilion contains public spaces-a reception hall, auditorium, plus 10,000 square feet of flexible space for temporary exhibitions. Shaped like the prow of a ship, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking over Lake Michigan, it incorporates both cutting-edge technology and old-world craftsmanship, a nod to Milwaukee's strong craft tradition. Calatrava said the structure responds to the culture of the lake: the sailboats, the weather, the sense of motion and change. In this revised edition, new photographs of the completed building in situ are shown together with new scholarship and conservation efforts of 166 pieces from the museum's permanent collections.