This morning, on what looked like would be another lovely day in southern Florida, I set out at 9 AM driving south. I turned onto the causeway and bridge to Fort Myers Beach, crossed over to Lovers Key State Park, and continued on to Bonita Springs and Naples.
I turned right on Pine Tree Boulevard to find the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts and the Naples Museum of Art. The buildings are connected by a common courtyard filled with sculptures. Celebrating 29 years in southern Florida, the Philharmonic Orchestra is recognized as one of the top regional orchestras in the United States. In addition to classical, pops, and chamber concerts, the Philharmonic as international recording credits, 2 PBS television specials, and has accompanied many artists including Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.
The Museum of Art is a 3 story, 15,000 square foot, 15 gallery museum which opened in November of 2000. Costing $10.6 million, the museum has a glass dome conservatory, 16 x 10 foot bronze and stainless steel entrance doors (gates) by world-famous metal artist Albert Paley (who also designed the gold colored ribbon-style door handles of the Philharmonic Center), and a 10 foot wide blue icicle chandelier by glass artist Dale Chihuly. The museum has presented a number of important exhibitions, many of which have received international attention.
Many of the wonderful temporary exhibits will be described in detail in the next few blog postings.
