Weisman Art Museum Tours and Activities

Sitting on the edge of the University of Minnesota campus, and looking out over the Mississippi, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum (WAM) appears perched like a silvery citadel. Its river-facing front – with its crazy collection of towers, buttresses and curving sweeps of stainless steel – is one of the most photographed buildings in Minneapolis. Built in 1993 to house works of art – and to act as a teaching museum for the University – the 'Fred' (as many Minneapolis like to call it) is an undoubted work of art in itself.It was designed by one of the most-renowned American architects of modern times – Frank Gehry. His post-modern masterpieces have changed the way people think about buildings, in cities from Prague to Seattle, Barcelona to Los Angeles. His idea for the Weisman Art Museum was to evoke the qualities of a waterfall and a fish. Most visitors, though, find themselves in awe, as they take in its marvellously playful curves and squares, all beaded with sunlight.Cleverly, all that drama and excitement is only on the river-facing west-side of the WAM. The rest of the building is clad in simple red-brick, aiming to fit in better with the many red-bricked buildings of the University. Much of the space inside is actually given over to the teaching of students, but the eclectic collections that are housed here more than justify its extravagant exterior.The museum is named after a Minneapolis native, Frederick R. Weisman, who became a noted art collector in the 20th century. It was his donations that helped bring the original museum to life, as well as forming the basis of its current collection. That now numbers to some 20,000 pieces, and ranges widely across the fields of artistic endeavours. You'll find superb modernist American paintings, compelling 1000-year old Native American pottery, and refined ancient Korean furniture – that is, if you can drag yourself away from that eye-candy front.