MILWAUKEE, WI.- It has been named the sexiest building in the world, featured in TV ads and shows and Hollywood movies, and it has transformed the city of Milwaukee. In September, the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the 10th anniversary of its iconic building, the Quadracci Pavilion, with the exhibition Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Designed by internationally renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, the Quadracci Pavilion was the Spaniard’s first completed commission in the United States. In 2001, it was named TIME Magazine “Best Design of 2001.”

“The exhibition features watercolors and models by the architect—works of art in themselves—that track the evolution of the building’s design,” said Chief Curator Brady Roberts. “The watercolors have a stream-of-consciousness-like quality, as the imagery flows from humans to sails, to Lake Michigan, to uncanny representations of Windhover Hall, imagined at the very outset of Calatrava’s design process in the mid-1990s. His models reveal the complex development of the moving wings of the Burke Brise Soleil, one of the most spectacular architectural elements in the world.”

Building a Masterpiece further highlights the construction of the entirely custom-made project, a testament to Milwaukee’s tradition of precision manufacturing and craftsmanship, through photographs, drawings, and models. Visitors will also be invited to submit their favorite photographs of the Museum—of its interior as well as its exterior. The best of these will be included in the exhibition, demonstrating how significantly the building has brought a sense of pride in, as well as international attention to, the city.

Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum will be on view September 8, 2011, through January 1, 2012.