Dia Art Foundation has three main gallery spaces—Manhattan, Bridgehampton, and Beacon, New York—and each offers a unique juxtaposition of art and architecture. I visit them all frequently, but I particularly enjoy Beacon in spring and summer, when light floods into the 300,000-square-foot former Nabisco box factory.

The master plan for the campus was completed in 2003 by architecture firm Open Office in close collaboration with artist Robert Irwin (who has just reimagined his seminal 1998 Manhattan Dia show, “Excursus: Homage to the Square3,” in a new magnificent installation at Beacon). Original sawtooth skylights and walls of industrial window sashes are the primary source of illumination, and as the days grow brighter and longer, so do the light and shadows inside the space.

The museum’s collection includes work by Louise Bourgeois, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, and many others set masterfully against the backdrop of the building and in intelligent relation to one another.

3 Beekman Street, Beacon, NY; diaarrg *

Click here for a trip to DIA.