Des Moines Art Center (Des Moines, Iowa)

 modernism, interesting place, Art Deco (architecture), 1948_construction, art museum / art gallery, 1985_construction, 1968_construction, International style architecture

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The Des Moines Art Center is an art museum with an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, modern art and mixed media. It was established in 1948. Artists included in the permanent collection are Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Francis Bacon, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gerhard Richter, Claes Oldenburg, Mary Cassatt, Auguste Rodin, Grant Wood, Deborah Butterfield, Paul Gauguin, Eva Hesse, Ronnie Landfield, Roy Lichtenstein, George Segal, Mark Rothko, John Singer Sargent, Joseph Cornell and Takashi Murakami.

The Art Center is a museum with three connecting buildings. Each building is designed by a notable architect:
The architecture of the original museum wing was designed in a combination of Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles by Eliel Saarinen in 1945 and completed in 1948.
The second addition, originally intended for large-scale sculpture, was designed in a Modernist style by I.M. Pei in 1966 and completed in 1968. Legend says that Pei designed the south windows, which look out onto the rose garden, to resemble "PEI", but he has denied this.
The third wing was designed by Richard Meier and completed in 1985. This wing was designed to allow as much natural ambient light in as possible.

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