Glass and zinc rise ten floors in the Mint Museum Uptown ahead of you, the newer of Charlotte's two Mint Museum locations and the centerpiece of the Levine Center for the Arts complex. The building, designed by Machado Silvetti and completed in 2010, contains ten floors of art across multiple disciplines — craft and design, fashion, American and contemporary art — in a striking glass and zinc tower that holds its own against the financial district surrounding it. The Mint Museum takes its name from the original U.S. Branch Mint that operated in Charlotte from 1837 to 1861, coining gold from the Carolina Piedmont.
When the original mint building was converted into an art museum in 1936, it became the first art museum in North Carolina. The uptown branch was created to bring the collection closer to the city center and to serve as an anchor for the cultural district that Charlotte was building in the early 2000s. The museum's craft collection is internationally regarded, reflecting Charlotte's long manufacturing heritage and its investment in the decorative arts.
Look at the building's relationship to the street — this is art inserted into the daily life of a working financial district.