In what year did The Cloisters museum open?

The Cloisters museum opened in 1938.

Its official opening took place on May 10, 1938, in Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan. The museum is operated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and specializes in European medieval art and architecture, especially works and settings associated with the Romanesque and Gothic periods.

The Cloisters grew from the collection of George Grey Barnard, an American sculptor who gathered medieval architectural fragments and artworks in France. Financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. acquired the collection for the Met and helped provide the land and funding for a purpose-built museum. Architect Charles Collens designed a complex that incorporated authentic elements from French monasteries and abbeys.

The date can cause confusion because construction took several years and the museum’s medieval-looking structures include both original fragments and modern construction. Work began in the 1930s, and the buildings and gardens were officially opened in 1938; public visits began a few days later. The Cloisters is therefore not a surviving medieval monastery, but a twentieth-century museum assembled to evoke one.