While Berlin, Barcelona, and London are losing prominent attractions for enthusiasts of surreal art and unconventional landscapes, Florida is gaining a significant new landmark inspired by Salvador Dali, known as the "Dali Dome."
Promising visitors a 360-degree light and sound experience that reflects the surrealist works of the artist, the Dali museum's dome is to be lit up from the inside from the ground up to the top with moving images for an immersive approach to Dali's work.
The museum, located in the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, is home to the largest collection of Dali's work outside of Europe. Visitors can expect to see a wide variety of his paintings, sculptures, and drawings, as well as interactive exhibits that explore his life and work.
Florida's newest attraction also fills a few Dali-shaped holes left in European cities. First, the Berlin Dali Museum closed in 2021 to look for a new space, while London and Barcelona are now set to lose their immersive experiences in the "Dalí Cybernetics" exhibitions in Aug. and Sept.
This leaves the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain – Dali's final resting place and home to the world's largest surrealist object – as the world's foremost art space related to Dali.
The museum is housed in a former theatre that Dali himself designed and its collection includes over 1,500 works of art, as well as Dali's personal belongings and furniture.
Further south in Spain, the former home of Dali in Port Lligat, a fishing village on the Costa Brava, is meanwhile a testament to the eccentricity and extravagance of the life he shared with his older, domineering muse, Gala.
A polar bear at the entrance and an ancient telephone booth next to a phallus-shaped pool are just a few of the clear signs that the master of surrealism once lived here.
The intricate interior allows intimate glimpses into the studio, living area and garden. The rugged coastline here inspired and captivated him, and he continued working on the house all his life.
Not far away, Costa Brava's village of Pubol would have remained in relative obscurity, if Dali had not promised his wife a castle.
At the end of the 1960s, he bought the run-down estate in the Baix Emporda region of Pubol and gave it the Dali treatment, including a throne for Gala and golden taps on the bathtub. The Cami de Ronda hiking trail that passes the house has become a small pilgrimage of sorts for surrealism fans.
