The Art Institute of Chicago

674 Words2 Pages

The building at 111 South Michigan Avenue, home of the Art Institute of Chicago, was opened in 1893 as the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition. The building was passed on to the Art Institute after the end of the exposition. Designed in the Beax-Arts style by Boston firm Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, building has become an icon for chicagoans an tourists alike. The Modern Wing, the Art Institute’s latest and largest addition to date, opened on May 16, 2009, and was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. The 264,000 square foot addition now houses the museum’s collections of modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography. The new Modern Wing looks and feels very different from the original Art Institute building because of its materials, it’s location, and because of the art housed within it. It makes sense that a gallery for classical art would be housed in a building with a classical style, and a gallery for modern art would be housed in a more modern building, which is how ...

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