Mass Moca: From Mill to Museum

The result of more than a decade of careful planning, designing, and building, the newly opened Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art pays tribute to nearly a century's worth of industry, labor, and commerce. Located in the college town of North Adams in a series of old mill buildings that once housed a textile factory and later an electrical company, MASS MoCA is a stunning example of intelligent, civic-minded architectural gentrification and visionary planning.The story of how MASS MoCA came to be -- from its conception in 1986 to its opening in the summer of 1999 -- is eloquently told in words and pictures in this beautifully designed volume. More than 100 black and white and color photographs document the painstaking transformation of a 19th-century mill complex, listed on the national Historic Register, into a museum that would house the world's largest collection of contemporary art. Museum Director Joseph Thompson offers a fascinating history of the site and his struggles to get the project off the ground, as well as a curatorial essay that reveals how the AIA Award-winning complex blurs the traditional lines between production and exhibition space to offer unique opportunities for artists and visitors alike. A unique and triumphant story of successful interaction between postindustrial concerns and historic preservation. Mill to Museum is a lesson in how architects, artists, citizens and government can work together to transform not only a building-but the very way we experience art and architecture.