Dome

Lobby atrium, view of the doors; The museum is housed in two buildings: the 1912 Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, a marble-encrusted building in the classical style designed by the architects Edward and William S. Maxwell and the modernist Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion across the street, designed by Moshe Safdie, built in 1991. The building stands on the south side of Sherbrooke Street, facing the one built in 1912. Safdie wanted to give the new entrance to the Montreal museum a monumental appearance that would match that of the Maxwell brothers' neoclassical portico but at the same time signal a radically different concept of the museum. The 1912 portico frames a set of heavy oak and bronze doors that stand as a bulwark protecting treasures contained in a temple to art. Safdie's great arch in white marble, on the other hand, opens onto an entrance-hall flooded in light from a huge glazed roof. Source: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; http://www.mmfa.qc.ca/ (accessed 11/23/2007)