The Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL

Any museum that focuses on the work of a single artist should be housed in a building that perfectly represents that artist. Out of many dedicated museums across the world, the Dali Museum is perhaps the most successful in that endeavor. The cuboidal main structure is fairly standard, but it is truly Dali-fied by the steel and glass that seems to melt from the building, like the viscous clocks of ‘The Persistence of Memory’. A surreal addition to Florida’s west coast, it perfectly suits the work of the master of surrealism.

A striking neo-Russian building built in the 19th century, the vivid scarlet of the State Historical Museum perfectly suits its location on Red Square, where it sits alongside the many other brightly colored buildings of Moscow. Tracing Russian history from the prehistoric to the present, the museum itself estimated it house a collections totaling in the millions. The building itself has a history as interesting as the collection, however. Originally a baroque building built in the days of Peter the Great, it has moved from Tsarist opulence to Soviet austerity and back again.

The Royal Ontario Museum has long been one of North America’s most popular museums, but in 2007 it also became one of its most architecturally fascinating, with the opening of ‘The Crystal.’ This jagged deconstructionist structure designed by Daniel Libeskind was built as an expansion to the original building, and makes for a fascinating contrast, facing into the future as much as the heritage of the building looks to the past. This new wing has many fans drawn in by its bold daringness – but many critics who name it one of the world’s ugliest buildings.

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