Salvador Dali Museum

The new three-story, 68,000 sq. ft. Salvador Dali Museum in St Petersburg, Florida is  organized around an ellipsoidal-shaped, curving  glass-walled 75-foot-high atrium. The facility houses the permanent collection, a temporary exhibit space, museum shop, art vault library, and administrative offices. The first level also features a 90-seat theatre, 150-seat community hall, and a café.

The three-story atrium space that serves as the social and circulation hub of the building created several acoustical design challenges that Siebein Associates addressed. These included reducing sound focusing travelling around and upwards through the large space; reducing the levels of reverberant noise reflected in the room from the cafe, museum store and orientation/ticket spaces on the ground floor to the quieter, more contemplative galleries located on the third floor; and controlling the overall level of noise in the space when it is used for museum social functions.