Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, was founded by Alice Walton and opened on November 11, 2011. The architect was Moshe Safdie. The museum sits on about 120 acres of Ozark forest, in a ravine around Crystal Spring, where two ponds were formed by damming the spring.
It has eight interconnected pavilions totaling about 200,000 square feet. The materials are architectural concrete, western red cedar, copper roofing, laminated pine and local fieldstone, and some pavilions use suspension bridge technology. The Walton Family Foundation provided an endowment of about 800 million dollars.
The collection spans five centuries of American art. It includes Asher B. Durand's Kindred Spirits and Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter. The museum also holds the Frank Lloyd Wright Bachman-Wilson House, moved from New Jersey and opened to the public in 2015. General admission is free.
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