Marcia and John Price Museum Building at the University of Utah

View of entrance.

Words from the Architect

During the competition stage for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, our approach to the new museum required acknowledging and exploiting its privileged location at the terminus of the campus mall and its unique condition as a freestanding artifact seen against the Wasatch Mountain Range. Given the museum's programmatic intentions, we decided early on to make the proposed Grand Gallery the centerpiece of the project, its most powerful and representative space.

View of South facade.

The project evolved into a continuous succession of stepping prismatic volumes that wrap around as they ascend and culminate in the iconic central space. This organization creates a spiral-like crescendo of discrete volumes, each one associated with specific and distinct programmatic elements. The lowest corresponds to the auditorium, the next to the entrance and public services, followed by art education, permanent galleries, etc. To reinforce this strategy, each of the volumes is distinguished from the others by a subtle combination of two different colors of brick. This results in a gradation of five distinct tones for the five volumes - from darkest (the auditorium) to lightest (the Grand Gallery). Large protruding window volumes inset at the outer corners intensify the thrust of these volumes' centripetal movement.

Grand Gallery window.

From all sides, the museum appears as a commanding and abstract composition of articulated volumes, colors, and light. Inside, the visitor is also drawn into this dynamic interplay by the tension developed between the straightforward and well-scaled circulation system of the galleries, and the Grand Gallery's powerful diagonal force created by the relationship between the entry point and the over-scaled corner window. The visitor is thus constantly challenged by two realities: first, that of the exhibition spaces which are entirely subordinated to the collection's display; and second, that of the Grand Gallery's distortions of all normal parameters of light, scale, and function.

Credits

• Text by Machado and Silvetti Associates
• Photographs © Michael Moran, Courtesy of Machado and Silvetti Associates

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