The Cloisters in Upper Manhattan

30 June 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Museums, Exhibitions, New York City Reading Time:  11 minutes

The Cloisters © flickr.com - Brian Clift/cc-by-2.0

The Cloisters © flickr.com – Brian Clift/cc-by-2.0

The Cloisters is a museum in Upper Manhattan, New York City specializing in European medieval architecture, sculpture and decorative arts. Its early collection was built by the American sculptor, art dealer and collector George Grey Barnard, and acquired by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1925. Rockefeller extended the collection and in 1931 purchased land at Washington Heights and contracted the design for a new building that was to become the Cloisters. The museum is today part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has been described as the “crowning achievement of American museology.” Its architectural and artistic works are largely from the Romanesque and Gothic stylistic periods. Its four cloisters; the Cuxa, Bonnefont, Trie and Saint-Guilhem cloisters, were sourced from French monasteries and abbeys. Between 1934 and 1939 they were excavated and reconstructed in Washington Heights, in a large project overseen by the architect Charles Collens. They are surrounded by a series of indoor chapels and rooms grouped by period which include the Romanesque, Fuentidueña, Unicorn, Spanish and Gothic rooms. The design, layout and ambiance of the building is intended to evoke in visitors a sense of the Medieval European monastic life through its distinctive architecture. The area around the buildings contains a number of reconstructed early medieval gardens.   read more…

The Museum Mile in New York City

14 November 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, New York City, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  3 minutes

Metropolitan Museum of Art © Fcb981/cc-by-sa-3.0

Metropolitan Museum of Art © Fcb981/cc-by-sa-3.0

Museum Mile is the name for a section of Fifth Avenue running from 82nd to 105th streets on the Upper East Side, in an area sometimes called Upper Carnegie Hill. The Mile, which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world, is actually three blocks longer than one mile (1.6 km). Nine museums occupy the length of this section of Fifth Avenue. A tenth museum, the Museum for African Art (today The Africa Center), joined the ensemble in 2009; its Museum at 110th Street, the first new museum constructed on the Mile since the Guggenheim in 1959, opened in late 2012.   read more…

Return to TopReturn to Top