MASS MoCA
1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA
North Adams, MA
A 19th-century factory turned into one of the biggest contemporary art museums in the country, where art fills mill buildings the size of city blocks.
MASS MoCA is contemporary art at industrial scale. Housed in a sprawling complex of 19th-century factory buildings in North Adams, it is among the largest museums of contemporary art in the country, with galleries so vast that artists can hang, build, and install works that simply would not fit anywhere else. Whole rooms, whole buildings, become the canvas.
The setting is as much the story as the art. These brick mills once printed fabric and later made electronic components, employing much of the town, and when the factories closed the buildings sat empty. Reborn as a museum, they now hold immense installations, sound and light works, and long-term exhibitions in spaces that keep the bones, the beams, the bricks, and the light, of their working past.
What Guests Love
- Enormous mill galleries that let artists show room-sized and building-sized installations
- The long-term Sol LeWitt wall drawings spread across a dedicated three-story building
- The blend of raw industrial architecture with cutting-edge contemporary art
- A lively schedule of music, performance, and festivals in the old factory yard
Worth Knowing
- It is one of the largest art museums in the country, so plan for a lot of walking
- Exhibitions rotate and some installations are long-term, so what is on view changes over time
- The mix of galleries, courtyards, and performance spaces rewards a full afternoon
- The northern Berkshires can be cold and snowy in winter, mild and green in summer
Details
North Adams, MA
Learn about MASS MoCA
From mill to museum
The complex began in the 19th century as a textile printing works, one of the industries that grew up along the rivers of the northern Berkshires. Later, in the 20th century, the buildings became a plant making electrical components and electronics, and for decades this factory was the economic engine of North Adams, employing thousands.
When the plant closed in the 1980s, it left a huge cluster of empty buildings and a city looking for a future. The idea of turning the mill into a contemporary art museum grew over years of planning, and MASS MoCA opened in the late 1990s. It gave the old factory a second life and helped spark a wider revival of North Adams as an arts town, part of the cultural bloom of the Berkshires.
Art at a scale nothing else allows
The signature of MASS MoCA is size. Its largest gallery is a mill building long enough and tall enough to hold works the scale of a small building, and artists are invited to fill these spaces with ambitious, immersive installations. Walking through, you encounter room after room of sculpture, video, sound, and mixed media that use the raw architecture as part of the work.
One of the anchors is a long-term installation of wall drawings by the artist Sol LeWitt, spread across the three floors of a dedicated building, a survey of decades of his geometric and colorful work executed directly on the walls. Other artists have created light and sound environments, towering sculptures, and works you walk through or around, changing how you think about what a museum can hold.
A campus for performance and gathering
MASS MoCA is more than galleries. The complex includes courtyards, bridges, and performance spaces, and it hosts a busy calendar of concerts, dance, theater, and festivals, drawing musicians and audiences into the old factory yard. On a summer evening the mill can feel like a small city of art and sound.
The scale of the campus means you can wander for hours, moving between indoor galleries and outdoor spaces, discovering installations tucked into stairwells and along corridors. That sense of exploration, of finding art in the unexpected corners of a working-era factory, is a big part of what makes the place special.
The northern Berkshires around it
North Adams sits at the northern end of the Berkshires, ringed by wooded hills, with Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts, rising just to the south. The Mohican people are the original stewards of this valley country, and their descendants, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, remain a federally recognized nation with roots in the region.
The wider area is dense with culture and landscape. Nearby Williamstown holds the Clark Art Institute and a summer theater festival, while the Berkshires as a whole are known for music, museums, and hill-country hiking. Fall brings brilliant foliage to the surrounding ridges, making an autumn visit especially rewarding.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near North Adams
Williamstown and the Clark Art Institute
About 6 miles west
A college town home to the Clark, a renowned museum of European and American paintings set in the hills.
Mount Greylock
About 10 miles south
The highest peak in Massachusetts, with a summit war memorial tower and long views across four states.
Natural Bridge State Park
About 2 miles north
A white marble arch carved by a stream, the only natural marble bridge of its kind in North America.
The Berkshires
Surrounding
A hill region famous for music, art, gardens, and country inns, stretching south through Lenox and Stockbridge.