Beauty by the Bay

Named one of AOL Travel’s “Buildings You Have to See Before You Die,” this new museum houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of Salvador Dalí’s works outside of Spain.

The challenge was to create an affordable, iconic building symbolic of the Spanish painter’s work. The team needed to ensure technical feasibility and design excellence while avoiding “kitsch.” 

The three-story museum is on a beautiful bayside site along St. Petersburg’s downtown waterfront. The dramatic envelope balances the exhibition and protection of the priceless masterpieces within a simple, powerful aesthetic. A “treasure box” shelters the 2,000-piece collection from potential Category 5 hurricane winds and storm surges.

The design opens up the 18-inch-thick concrete walls with a free-form glass geodesic structure that intrigues visitors while bringing daylight and bay views into public spaces. The 75-foot-tall geodesic glass “Enigma” and 45-foot-tall “Igloo” are formed by 1,062 undulating faceted glass panes, with no two exactly alike.

A poured-in-place, sculptural concrete spiral staircase beckons visitors to the galleries above. In the Permanent Gallery, black plaster light cannons focus natural light on seven large “Masterworks,” illuminating the paintings with UV-filtered daylight within curatorial standards.

On its first anniversary in January 2012, the Dalí Museum announced it had welcomed 370,000 ticketed visitors from 50 countries in 2011, nearly doubling the previous year’s attendance in the museum’s former location.