The Salvador Dali Museum's new waterfront building in St. Petersburg, Florida, opened on January 11, 2011. The museum traces its collection to A. Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, who began collecting Dali in the 1940s and ultimately created the preeminent Dali collection in the United States. Designed by HOK with Yann Weymouth and built for a Gulf Coast climate, the new structure replaced the museum's earlier adapted warehouse and combined thick storm-resistant concrete walls with a dramatic glass atrium known as the Enigma. Institutionally, the opening was more than an architectural event: it allowed the museum to better protect, display, and interpret more than 2,400 works and archival materials spanning Dali's career, from paintings and drawings to prints, sculpture, photographs, manuscripts, and artists' books.
The building strengthened the museum's role as the principal American center for Dali's art and archives.
