The
Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known
art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio
, United
States
. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker
Edward Drummond Libbey in
1901, and moved to its present location, a
Greek revival building designed by Edward B.
Green and Harry W. Wachter, in 1912. The building was expanded
twice in the 1920s and 1930s.
Exhibits
The museum contains major collections of
glass
art and of 19th and 20th century
European and
American art, as well as
small but distinguished
Renaissance,
Greek and
Roman, and
Japanese
collections. Notable individual works include
Peter Paul Rubens's
The Crowning of
Saint Catherine, significant minor works by
Rembrandt and
El Greco,
and modern works by
Willem de
Kooning,
Henry Moore, and
Sol LeWitt.
A concert hall within the east wing, the Peristyle, is built in a
classical style to match the museum's exterior. The hall is the
principal concert space for the
Toledo Symphony Orchestra. A
sculpture garden, containing
primarily
postwar works (earlier
sculptures are on display in the interior) was added in 2001, and
runs in a narrow band along the museum's Monroe Street
facade.
Glass Pavilion
A Center for the Visual Arts, designed by
Frank Gehry, was added in the 1990s.
It
includes the museum's library as well as studio, office, and
classroom space for the art department of the University of
Toledo
. In 2000, the architectural firm of
SANAA was chosen to design a new building, to
house the museum's glass collection; the commission was her first
in the United States. Front Inc. was appointed to assist the
architects in developing technical concepts for the glass wall
systems. The Glass Pavilion opened in August 2006 to considerable
critical acclaim; in his review for
The New York Times,
Nicolai Ouroussoff said, "Composed with
exquisite delicacy, the pavilion’s elegant maze of curved glass
walls represents the latest monument to evolve in a chain extending
back to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles." Ouroussoff commented on
the Pavilion's relationship with the Museum's other buildings:
The Glass Pavilion is part of a loosely knit complex
that includes the Beaux-Arts-style art museum here and the
University of Toledo’s Center for the Visual Arts, designed by
Frank Gehry.
With its grand staircase leading up to a row of Ionic
columns, the original museum is both a temple to art and a monument
to the belief in high culture’s ability to uplift the life of the
worker.
The new structure’s low, horizontal form fits in this
context with remarkable delicacy, as if the architects hesitated to
disturb the surroundings.
The building showcases the museum's original glass collection in
addition to several new works, including one prominent glass
sculpture by
Dale Chihuly. The Glass
Pavilion is made possible through the largest public fundraising
drive in Toledo's history.
References
Notes
- Front
Inc. – official website
Resources
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