Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis

This is a nice-sized little art museum with just enough to see without being overwhelmed. The parking is free but if you park in the little pay lot at the bottom of the hill you can have a picnic on the banks of the river...one of our favorite summer spots.

The University of Minnesota's art program is flourishing these days and its centerpiece is the Weisman. The museum was designed by the famous American architect Frank Gehry who is probably most well-known for the Guggenheim in Spain. The building itself is impressive and the collection is interesting as well. When we were there in November of 2003 there was a Gehry exhibit as well as a photographic tribute to Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone who was recently killed in a plane crash.

The museum at the University of Minnesota was designed by Frank Gehry. He also designed the music museum in Seattle [?] and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. Please see the travelogue for more pictures.

The University of Minnesota Art Museum, designed by Frank Gehry several years before his commission for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao Spain, and clearly a test-run for his masterpiece there. It's an interesting piece of "chunky" architecture, shoehorned into a tight location on the banks of the Minnehaha, and worth seeing both for the museum's design and also for the well-displayed collection inside. (For another Gehry designed building, see the Center for Visual Arts on my Toledo page.)