COPIA, Culinary museum in Napa, United States.

COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts is a long, low building in downtown Napa with a wavy pale gray metal roof, a smooth gray band above a wall of rough light-colored stone rubble, and a projecting glass-windowed bay on the left. Opened in 2001, it held galleries, two theaters, classrooms, a demonstration kitchen, a restaurant, a rare book library and a 3.5-acre vegetable and herb garden.

The center was founded in 2001 by wine industry leaders as a gathering place for food, wine, and cultural experiences. In 2015 it became part of the Culinary Institute of America, shifting its focus to professional culinary education and demonstration.

The name comes from Copia, the Roman goddess of wealth and plenty, added before the 2001 opening. Julia Child helped fund the venture, and its restaurant was named Julia's Kitchen in her honour. After the 2008 closure, her cookware went to the National Museum of American History.

The building stands in downtown Napa's Oxbow District, next to the site of the former Rossi-Massa-Vallerga garden and near Oxbow Public Market. The 12-acre property was split in 2015, when the Culinary Institute of America bought the northern portion and opened its Copia campus there in 2016. Look for the long stone-rubble wall under a wavy gray metal roof, with a glazed bay projecting on the left.

The building's wavy, pale gray metal roof and rough stone rubble walls are what remain of architect James Polshek's design, hired in October 1994. The site was once the Rossi-Massa-Vallerga Garden, an Italian building complex and vegetable garden whose oldest structures dated to around 1880. The garden supplied Giuseppe Vallerga's produce stand until vegetable production ceased in 1957.