Salvador Dali Museum

Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, an industrialist couple from Ohio, began buying Dali in 1943 and knew him personally for forty years; they eventually held so much that they looked for a city to take it, and St Petersburg won, opening the museum on March 7, 1982. The collection holds ninety-six oil paintings, over a hundred watercolours and drawings and some 1,300 graphics, with photographs, sculpture and objects. The 2011 building is designed for hurricanes: walls of concrete forty-six centimetres thick, and a free-form glass entry called the Enigma, twenty-three metres tall, grafted onto it with a spiral staircase inside.

What's there

• Ninety-six oil paintings - and some 1,300 graphics.
• Watercolours and drawings - over a hundred of them.
• A hurricane-rated building - with a 23-metre glass Enigma.
• A spiral staircase - inside the glass Enigma.

When to go

October to May; summer is hot and stormy. Two to three hours.

Good to know

It is a single-artist museum - the appeal depends on the artist. Timed entry applies at busy periods. Special exhibitions cost extra. Summer afternoon storms are routine.

Nearby

The Museum of Fine Arts is up the waterfront; the Chihuly Collection is close.

Key facts