Duke’s Nasher Museum to open

It was in the 1940s that economics student Raymond Nasher first decided that Duke University needed an art museum. More than 60 years later, the student who became a Dallas real estate tycoon made it happen. Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art opens to the public this weekend in Durham, N.C.

Nasher donated $10 million to fund construction of the $23-million museum, designed by architect Rafael Vinoly.

It has 14,000 square feet of gallery space in three pavilions that fan out from the building’s piazza -- a 13,000-square-foot glass-ceilinged center that allows natural light to reflect on the walls, changing patterns as shadows emerge. A 173-seat auditorium occupies a fourth pavilion, and administrative offices a fifth.