Walking Tour: 100 Years of High Museum History

The High Museum of Art is marking its centennial this year, and one of the ways they're celebrating is a walking tour that looks at the buildings that have housed the museum over the last century. It's called Walking Tour: 100 Years of High Museum History, and it runs on Thursday, October 29, from 1:30 to 3 PM. The tour starts in the Taylor Lobby, the museum's main entrance at 1280 Peachtree St NE in Midtown.

The walk covers about a mile on the museum grounds and introduces the architects who shaped the High's physical history. You'll hear about Walter T. Downing, who designed the home of Harriet 'Hattie' High, and Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, who designed the current campus. Along the way, the tour picks up a few long-hidden surprises about the site that you wouldn't normally notice just walking through the galleries.

Leading the tour is Julia Forbes, the High's Associate Director of Institutional Research and a founding member of the Association for Art Museum Interpretation. She's the one who'll be walking you through the different eras of the museum's architecture.

This tour is part of a larger centennial year the High is filling with exhibitions, free community events, public art activations, collection reinstallations, music, family programs, and special events. The anniversary also brings together exhibitions across photography, sculpture, design, and works on paper, and refreshes the permanent collection with favorites returning to view, new acquisitions, and new stories across its collecting areas—from African and American Art to Decorative Arts and Design, European Art, Folk and Self-Taught Art, and Modern and Contemporary Art and Photography. The tour runs Thursday, October 29, from 1:30 to 3 PM, with a makeup date reserved for Thursday, November 5.