10 of The Best Museums in US will Take Your Breath Away

Museums are not just about art, they are also about the architecture behind those cultural edifices. Great museum architecture challenges the art and complements it, encouraging and welcoming people to experience the cultural journey within.

Here is a list of the best museums in us with incredible designs that jolted them from local to global, and we posted previously a list of the ‘10 of the Most Beautiful Museums in the World’, displaying the great architecture behind world-famous museums.

List of 10 Most Best Museums in the US:

1. The Walker Art Center (Edward Larrabee Barnes, Herzog and de Meuron, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)

© Paul Warchol

The first building of the museum was designed in 1971 by Edward Larabee Barnes, while the second one was designed by Herzog and de Meuron in 2005. The two structures helped the museum to develop from a small local museum to a celebrated global one.

The cultural venue, which receives about 700,000 visitors every year, comprises a campus area of 19 acres that houses magnificent modern artworks.

2. Salvador Dali Museum (Yann Weymouth-HOK, St Petersburg, Florida, USA)

© Moris Moreno

What do you expect from a museum that carries the name of Salvador Dali? Naturally, the museum’s design links the ordinary to the extraordinary in the most surreal way. The building is made of concrete, and it features transparent bubbles, bulging at one side. The museum’s original building was built in 1982, while the recent addition was constructed in 2011 by HOK. The venue exhibits 2,100 works by the great Spanish painter.

3. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Snohetta, San Francisco, California, USA)

© Jon McNeal

The museum is dedicated solely to the art of the 20th century and it accommodates about 33,000 art pieces. It had a recent addendum constructed, multiplying the area of the gallery by two. Thanks to the extension, now the exhibition area is 170,000-square-foot which entitles the museum to be one of the biggest museums in the US.

4. Petersen Automotive Museum (Kohn Pedersen Fox, Los Angeles, CA, USA)

courtesy of Petersen Automotive Museum

The museum, established in 1994, showcases championship-winning race cars, art cars, notable motorcycles, vehicles from Hollywood films, and other memorable vehicles.

Global firm KPF was commissioned to revamp the building’s exterior, while local studio The Scenic Route was tasked with updating the interior. The building is now wrapped in a total of 308 metal ribbons, each uniquely designed. The front and bottom surfaces are made of stainless steel, while the back and top surfaces are made of textured aluminum coated with “hot-rod red” paint.

5. American Museum of Natural History ( Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mould, New York, USA)

Courtesy of Wikipedia

The American Museum of Natural History is the largest natural history museum in the world with a mission commensurately monumental in scope. The entire museum spans 4 city blocks and consists of some 25 interconnected buildings.  Though today the phrase “natural history” is restricted to the study of animal life, the museum—founded in 1869 on the heels of discoveries by Darwin and other Victorians—uses it in its original sense:  that is, the study of all-natural objects, animal, vegetable and mineral.

6. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (Josef Paul Kleihues, Chicago, Illinois, USA)

© MCA Chicago

The museum’s innovative design is in keeping with the contemporary art it houses. The incredible elliptical stairway adds to the aesthetics of the interior and luring photographers into taking the most amazing pictures.

7. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Steven Holl, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)

© Roland Halbe

Constructed in 1933, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art holds around 35,000 artworks. Another building was added to the venue in 2007, designed by Steven Holl, to house the rapidly growing collections of the museum.

The museum is clad in layers of translucent glass which let in daylight with varying degrees, while at night, they give off suitable lighting to accentuate the charming art pieces.

8. De Young Museum (Herzog and de Meuron, San Francisco, California, USA)

Although the museum is over a 100-year-old, several expansions were added throughout the years until its distinct tower was built in 1921. However, in 1989, the earthquake of Loma Prieta caused serious damage to the structure of the museum. Finally, in 2005, Herzog and de Meuron designed the building that became the museum we know today.

© Iwan Baan

The museum is located in Golden Gate Park and was built for the California Midwinter International Exposition. It is famous for being the most important museum in the west of the US. It houses both international and American art pieces like international costumes and fabric art, as well as arts from ancient America, ancient Australia, and Africa.

9. National Museum of African American History and Culture (David Adjaye, Washington D.C., USA)

© Darren Bradley

This is one new museum that no one has expected to be so successful from day one. Opened in 2016, the African American History and Culture received thousands of people who enjoyed the place so much that they stayed there for long hours. The project cost 540 million dollars, and it is considered a key addition to the American capital.

10. The Broad (Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Gensler, Los Angeles, California, USA)

© Iwan Baan

Opened in 2015, the Broad museum was a great success in that it received around 820,000 visitors during the first year after its inauguration. The place cost 140 million dollars, and it has an area of 120,000 square feet. It accommodates around 2,000 pieces of contemporary art.