2. Allen Art Building

Another view of the Allen Art Building.

The buildings that house the AMAM collection, the college art department, and the art library, are no less engaging than the works of art within. The complex of buildings designed by Cass Gilbert in 1917 represents an eclectic dialogue between Tuscan Renaissance and Midwestern vernacular architectural styles. The 1977 addition designed by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates comments, with both respect and irony, on that dialogue, and poses an early critique of the orthodox modernist architecture of its day.