Alexandria Museum of Art

A Renaissance Revival bank building from 1898 became Central Louisiana's premier art museum in 1977. The Rapides Bank and Trust Company Building — added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 — stands in downtown Alexandria overlooking the Red River, its second life focused on Louisiana and Southern art. The museum expanded in 1998, adding a grand foyer and offices as an annex to the original bank structure. In 1999, the state recognized it as an Outstanding Arts Organization in the Louisiana Governor's Arts Awards. By 2007, the museum had entered into a collaborative endeavor agreement with Louisiana State University of Alexandria, transforming the building into a downtown campus where LSUA classes meet alongside exhibitions. Between five and seven exhibitions rotate through each year, surrounded by multidisciplinary programming: lectures and master classes tied to the medium or subject on display, concerts and recitals, yoga classes, Second Saturday Markets, Museum Afterhours. The programming supports film, literature, poetry, songwriting, visual arts — art forms plural, not one tradition cordoned off. The museum runs two parish-wide school initiatives. ArtExpress puts resident artist educators and museum staff in elementary classrooms for arts-integrated lessons, free to schools. Art2Go provides hands-on visual art workshops to elementary teachers, supporting the state's requirement for one hour of visual arts instruction per week in classrooms, taught by certified art teachers. Summer workshops serve elementary and middle school students. The museum also provides arts activities in the Bolton Avenue Community Center afterschool program. You go for the Louisiana and Southern art collection. You stay because a 1898 bank vault became a gallery, and the city figured out how to make the building work twice.