The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the oldest art museum in Texas and one of the nation’s largest encyclopedic museums, with nearly 80,000 works spanning more than 5,000 years from six continents. Founded through a civic effort, it dedicated its site in 1917 and opened its first building in 1924, the first purpose-built art museum in Texas. Its campus grew through major additions, including the only museum building in the United States designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and now centers on three main collection buildings. Gifts from prominent Houston benefactors shaped its strengths, while Bayou Bend and Rienzi extend its collections into American and European decorative arts.