“ Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.” Salvador Dali
On a date that would have been perfect for the famous artist Salvador Dali, a museum holding his name and works opens in St. Petersburg, Florida. HOK, along with Beck Group, has designed a new museum with an architecture greatly inspired by the great surrealist, “combines elements of the classical and the fantastical,” according to the director of the museum. The design speaks to the essence of Dalí while incorporating functional elements to combat Florida’s tough weather.
The new $36 million, 66,450-square-foot museum Dali Museum houses more of the artist’s works than any other museum outside Spain, including a permanent collection of 96 oil paintings (including the 8 masterworks), 125 drawings and watercolors, 2,500 prints and photographs, 250 objets d’art, and a 5,000 book library.
While the concrete protects the art, this “treasure box” is broken and disrupted by the organic, triangulated glass “Enigma.” The glass is seen as “contrast between the rational world of the conscious and the more intuitive, surprising natural world” – a recurring theme of Dalí’s work.
