Architecture for Art: American Art Museums, 1938-2008

This survey follows the trajectory of museum architecture in America since the birth of Modernism by examining art museums throughout the country, each described in short essays by the architects and museum directors themselves and illustrated with more than two hundred color photographs by architectural photographer Paul Rocheleau. As these examples make clear, museum architecture in the United States has become the only dependable refuge for great architects to push the boundaries of design, the one area of architectural practice in which radically new forms and cutting-edge materials have been welcomed, if not demanded by the museum-going public. Of special interest are designs for a number of museums currently under construction or near completion, including works by Daniel Libeskind in Denver and Frank Gehry in Washington, D.C.
With public interest in museum design at an all-time high, this is an opportune moment for the world to look back at seven decades of architecture for art in America - the work of fifty-three of the world's greatest architects for thirty-nine museums in twenty states.