Since the start of the new century, Houston’s art scene has positively exploded with cutting-edge galleries, non-profit art spaces, and star-studded exhibitions. This is partly attributable to a fifteen-year boom in the price of West Texas Intermediate crude, which has spawned a new wave of deep-pocketed patrons of the arts. But it was John and Dominique de Menil, two immigrants who arrived during World War II, who first conceived of Houston as a cultural capital and whose legacy has guided every art-driven venture in the city ever since. Indeed, anyone remotely interested in art and architecture probably has The Menil Collection—a museum situated on a thirty-acre campus in a residential neighborhood—on their bucket list. It’s home to approximately 17,000 works of art by the likes of Picasso, Pollock, and Duchamp—and the architecture on display, including an early masterpiece by Renzo Piano, is just as big a draw as the art inside. Even the neighborhood itself is worth the trip: the de Menils bought all the craftsman-style homes surrounding the campus and had them painted “Menil gray.” Throw in the nearby Rothko Chapel, and a visit to the Menil feels less like another day at the museum than an art-driven spiritual pilgrimage. Here, a tour of the grounds. The Menil Collection (main building)

When it opened in 1987, the Menil Collection marked the U.S. debut of a then relatively unknown Italian architect named Renzo Piano. Commissioned by Dominique de Menil to create a structure that would seem “small on the outside but large on the inside,” Piano produced a light-drenched building that his fellow architects frequently cite as as one of the greatest designs of the last half-century. Despite its unassuming exterior, it houses an outstanding permanent collection of 20th Century masters, as well as exemplary Byzantine, Medieval and tribal art. Among the standout pieces: Ceremonial Dance Curtain, a 19th century textile spanning 20 feet in width and attributed the artist Chalatas of the Ditidaht peoples. Photo by Don Glentzer / The Menil Collection Cy Twombly Gallery

Erected across the street from the main building in 1995, this gallery was Piano’s second U.S. museum commission—which he designed off a sketch by Twombly himself. Lit through the roof and comprised of nine galleries, it serves as a permanent retrospective of a singular artist, charting five decades of Twombly’s ever-evolving vision through his large-scale canvases, sculptures and drawings. Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall

Completed two days before his death in 1996, Flavin’s site-specific installation in Richmond Hall (named for the facing street and formerly a grocery store) is a fittingly transcendent final statement from the minimalist master. The gallery contains three distinct pieces in Flavin’s preferred medium: fluorescent light tubes. Alamy The Rothko Chapel

Containing 14 color-field canvases by the Russian-born abstract expressionist, this interfaith sanctuary is quite simply one of the most peaceful places on earth. It’s not at all unusual to come across gallery-goers meditating one of the prayer benches or sitting on the floor in lotus pose. Though technically not part of the Menil Collection, the Chapel, which the de Menils commissioned in 1971, laid the foundation for everything that came after and is still the most widely recognized of all the structures in the vicinity. It is not to be missed. Just outside, you’ll find a reflecting pool featuring Barnett Newman’s sculpture “Broken Obelisk” — installed in memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.