The Menil Collection main building is lauded almost as much as the artwork it contains. Plans for a museum complex that would house the John and Dominique de Menil family art collection started in the late 1960s. Italian architect Renzo Piano worked with Dominique de Menil to create a museum that looked "small on the outside but [would] be as big as possible inside." They succeeded brilliantly. The Menil's nearly 30,000 square feet of gallery and public space seems intimate but spacious. In addition to art exhibits, the museum often hosts concerts and lectures (we're willing to bet Piano and his client talked about acoustics somewhere along the way).