Menil Museum

Visiting Houston? One of Houston’s top sights is this totally free museum that was founded by John and Dominique de Menil, who believed in the spiritual power of art. They amassed a collection of some 10,000 paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books, now housed in an airy, chic space created by Renzo Piano, who also designed the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The collection is shown via “whimsical” rotation, so no visit is quite the same as the last.