Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Moshe Safdie's pavilions over an Ozark stream, holding American art from the colonial era to now.
Alice Walton founded the museum in a wooded ravine on the edge of Bentonville, and it opened in November 2011. Moshe Safdie set a chain of copper-and-glass pavilions along Crystal Spring, with two of them bridging a pair of ponds formed by dams. Laminated timber roofs curve above the galleries and the glazed lobby, and eleven kilometres of trails link the buildings to the town, the Walmart Museum and a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house re-erected on the grounds.
The permanent collection runs from colonial portraiture to contemporary work, with Gilbert Stuart's George Washington, Asher B. Durand's Kindred Spirits, Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter and paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence and Kerry James Marshall. Admission to the permanent galleries is free. A 114,000-square-foot expansion by Safdie Architects opened in June 2026, adding two galleries, a large temporary exhibition space and studios for ceramics, digital art and artists in residence.
Highlights
- Bridge pavilions spanning two spring-fed ponds
- Free entry to the permanent American collection
- Bachman-Wilson House, a Wright Usonian home moved here
- Safdie expansion of 2026 with new exhibition galleries
