Pontus Hulten, director of the National Museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou Center, tells us that Dominique de Menil had been thinking about building a museum for her collection for several years, but could not decide on an architect. Hulten organized a trip to Israel to visit the museum at kibbutz Ein Harod, and took Renzo Piano and the American collector to meet. The meeting was fruitful and the result is one of the most praised museums of the 1980s.

In contrast to the technological ostentation of the Beaubourg, Piano has built a discreet but elegant building that fits harmoniously into a neighborhood of low, wood-paneled houses. It has a rectangular and asymmetrical floor plan, so that its possible monumental character has been reduced to the minimum possible. Its rooms are spacious and simple, with smooth, white walls rising from a dark, continuous pavement. All of this is flooded by the intense but diffuse light provided by a roof composed of innumerable sheets of reinforced concrete...[+]