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Menil Collection

Menil Collection

Renzo Piano

Photo: WhisperToMe · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Montrose, Houston, Texas, United States
Client / Owner
Menil Foundation
Year
Completed 1987
Access
Public
Typology
Cultural
Style
—

The main building of the Menil Collection in Houston was designed by Renzo Piano for the Menil Foundation, a nonprofit established in 1954 with Dominique de Menil as its first president. The article gives no construction dates, only a public opening in June 1987. Nearly half the cost came from Houston foundations, including $5 million each from the Cullen and Brown Foundations.

The exterior is painted Menil gray to match the surrounding bungalows, which the foundation began buying in the 1960s. The article says the skylit Cy Twombly Gallery is lit like the main museum. The campus covers 30 acres. It gives no materials or dimensions for the main building.

Later additions include the Cy Twombly Gallery, commissioned in 1992, a Dan Flavin installation, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, the Menil Drawing Institute, which opened in 2018, and a 2013 landscape plan by Michael Van Valkenburgh. Admission is free.

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