Glamorous Fortress of Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali Museum opened in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. Located on the Bay of Tampa Bay, it is the largest museum outside of Spain. In fact, he simply replaced the existing building is more than 30 years, since it does not match the style of the great creator.

In the new Salvador Dali museum is a collection of 2,140 of his works, including 96 paintings. The total area of more than 6.300 sqm and unique architecture have become an ideal upgrade and relished all fans of Dali. Construction works were carried out for two years, and the total project cost was about $ 30 million. Various masterpieces of miniature images of the size of a postcard to the great works, is now adequately represented.

On a new design company works HOK Florida, and he fully complies with creativity Salvador Dali – a surreal and unique. Nevertheless, the decision to upgrade the building it is not so much to create the most appropriate look and feel, how much was due to the need to build a more robust and reliable design that can withstand natural disasters and to save precious works of art.

To house such a spectacular collection, HOK designed the museum to complement the art, and give visitors a “Dalí-esque” experience, but at the same time protect the work from any foreseeable danger, especially hurricanes and flooding.

As such, the museum was designed to withstand 165 mph wind loads from a Category 5, 200-year hurricane and includes 18 inch, cast-in place, reinforced Storm doors shield the vault and galleries, which are all located on the third floor, protected against 30 foot hurricane storm surges.concrete walls and a 12 inch thick roof.

All of the glass is one-and-a-half inches thick, insulated and laminated, and was tested to resist the 135 mph winds, driven rain and missile impacts of a Category 3 hurricane.

Inspiration for the museum’s design came from Dalí’s work, as well as Buckminster Fuller, who particularly influenced the artist.

The three story building is a large concrete box, mysterious in its simplicity and accented by the fantastical geodesic glass atrium. Called the “Enigma”, after one of Dalí’s paintings, the faceted atrium crawls over the facade of the building and its shape is formed by a 75 foot tall spiraling staircase inside the lobby.