The Philadelphia Museum of Art is known locally as just “the Art Museum.” Philadelphia’s most impressive museum and the third-largest art museum in the country, it is a sight to behold inside and out.
Julian Abele, the first African American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s architecture school, was chief designer. Inspired by temples he saw while traveling in Greece, he designed the museum to look like three linked Greek temples. Walk around outside and take in the elaborate details like the intricate brightly painted sculptures along the top.
You could spend a whole day inside and still not see everything. There are more than 200 galleries and 80 period rooms showcasing more than 225,000 works of art. The museum also hosts some of the most famous traveling exhibits in the world, often serving as one of, if not the only, U.S. stop.
In 2007, the museum underwent a major expansion with the addition of the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building across the street (Fairmount and Pennsylvania Avenues). Modern gallery spaces, state-of-the-art visitor amenities, study centers, and educational resources are offered in the new space. It can be reached on foot or by a free shuttle from the Main Building every 15 minutes, and admission is included with admission to the main building.
Your tour is over, but with so much to see and do on the Parkway, you’ll need to come back again in order to experience everything.