Bechtler Museum of Modern Art
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| Established | January 2, 2010 |
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| Location | 420 South Tryon Street Charlotte, North Carolina |
| President | John Boyer |
| Website | Museum's Homepage |
The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, North Carolina is a 36,500 square feet (3,390 m2) museum space dedicated to the exhibition of mid-20th-century modern art. The modern art museum is part of the new Levine Center for the Arts in Uptown. The museum building was designed by architect Mario Botta.
The museum is named after the family of Andreas Bechtler, a Charlotte, North Carolina resident and native of Switzerland who assembled and inherited a collection of more than 1,400 artworks created by major figures of 20th-century modernism. The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art opened to the public on January 2, 2010, with former Mayor of Charlotte Anthony Foxx and Andreas Bechtler in attendance.
The museum is only the second in the country designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta, who also designed the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A key design element of the four-story structure is the soaring glass atrium that extends through the museum’s core and diffuses natural light throughout the building. The open atrium allows for visual interplay between spaces. Other notable features include a vaulted skylight system and an enveloping terra cotta exterior.
The building’s dominant feature is the fourth floor gallery which makes a bold and dramatic statement as it flies out from the core of the building, cantilevered and supported by a swelling column rising from the plaza below. Inside, Botta maintained a rigorous but elegant simplicity in the palette of materials which include steel, glass, terra cotta, black granite, polished concrete and wood. Botta also designed select pieces of furniture for the museum including the reception desk, café bar, gallery benches and hanging globe lights.
The Bechtler collection reflects most of the important art movements and schools from the 20th century with a deep holding of the School of Paris after World War II. The collection comprises mid-century modern art in various media by artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Andy Warhol, Jean Tinguely, Barbara Hepworth and Pablo Picasso. Many of the artists are represented by their exploration of a particular theme or subject matter through a variety of media and approaches.
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