Best Cultural/Worship: The Barnes Foundation Replicates Historic Gallery
Moving precious artwork can be a delicate business, but construction of the new 93,000-sq-ft Barnes Foundation building in Philadelphia was an even more sensitive process.
Dr. Albert Barnes amassed the largest private collection of post-impressionist and modernist art in the world during his lifetime. In 1925, he put it on display in a 12,000-sq-ft facility in Merion, Pa. Although Barnes willed that the collection remain in the gallery following his death in 1951, zoning restraints required the foundation to find a new home for it.