Walker Art Center: Art Spaces

Pocket book containing a history of the Walker Art Center. Text by Kathy Madison.

What began in 1879 as the first public art gallery west of the Mississippi—displaying the eclectic private collection of lumber baron T. B. Walker—has evolved into of the five most-visited modern/contemporary art museums and sculpture gardens in the United States. Today the Walker Art Center presents an internationally renowned program of contemporary arts, showcasing work across the visual, performing, and media arts. 

From T. B. Walker’s overflowing nineteenth-century salon-style galleries at his residence in downtown Minneapolis to the elegant minimalist spaces of architect Edward Larrabee Barnes’ influential 1971 building, the Walker’s architecture has mirrored its ambitious and innovative artistic programs. The latest instantiation, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, juxtaposes glass and aluminum mesh with brick, the serenity of nature with the vibrancy of urban life, and the contemplation of artworks with the immersion of theatrical performances. Diverse and lively, the new Walker Art Center is a place where audiences and ideas converge: a twenty-first-century town square in which visitors discover a meeting place for all the arts. 

Walker Art Center, 2009
Softcover / 6.5” x 4” / 64 pages