ARCHITECT’S FOCUS
Todd Schliemann’s other projects include The Standard hotel New York (both pictures)
very inspiring because of its height. The Canyon sets the stage for the
visitor experience. When you get peo- ple into a museum like this you want to make sure you’ve got them ready to learn. The emotionally-charged experi- ence of getting into a space like the Canyon makes it more than just an intellectual exercise. It touches you as a human being fi rst and then gets your mind working. Then, of course, there are the galler-
ies. Their sequence builds a narrative that encompasses many ideas from the region and explains them in a way that people can understand. On the oppo- site side of the building is the working part of the museum, the empirical part – the research and conservation laboratories, collection storage and administration. The approach to the Museum is very
important to the experience of the building. You get out of your car, enter the building, ascend from a com- pressed entry lobby to the voluminous, light-fi lled Canyon and then traverse, through a series of switchbacks, to the top fl oor. The switchbacks, which ascend 90 feet, allow you to climb and not feel it’s an exhausting experience. Then of course you’ve also got the
views from the roof and the Canyon looking out across all of the Salt Lake Valley to the lake, with the mountains in the background.
What is your favourite part of the museum? The Canyon is the most interesting space to me. It really is a spectacular volume of space. As you go through the museum you are always using the Canyon as a kind of way-fi nding refer-
THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF UTAH
The Natural History Museum of Utah’s new $102m home opened in Salt Lake City in November 2011. The Museum, which was established in 1963, is associated with the University of Utah, and was previously housed in the university’s campus building. The Museum is an active research
institution, with a collection of more than 1.2 million specimens and objects. It fea- tures more than 41,300 sq ft of gallery
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and education space, with the collec- tions housed in new exhibitions designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates. Nine dedicated, thematic exhibition galleries explore the Sky, Native Voices, Life, Land, First Peoples, Lake (Great Salt Lake), Past Worlds, Our Backyard and Utah’s Futures. Designed by Todd Schliemann of Ennead Architects, the new building was inspired by the region’s natural landscape
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of rock, soil, minerals and vegetation. By incorporating the use of recycled materi- als, local resources, photovoltaic energy, radiant cooling and the implementation of an extensive storm water catchment and management system, the Natural History Museum of Utah is seeking LEED Gold certifi cation, which would make it one of only 18 buildings in Salt Lake City with that distinction.
AM 1 2013 ©cybertrek 2013
ence. You know where you are because you can always see back into it.
How important was it for the museum to be sustainable? Everything we do is sustainable, whether the client asks us or not. In this case it was very important to them, but also if the building is going to be part of the land, it had better be responsive to the land in the long term. The building has a solar array on
the roof behind the planting. We have underground water retention tanks for controlling erosion on the site. The
PHOTO: © AISLINN WEIDELE/ENNEAD ARCHITECTS
PHOTO: © RYAN R BROWNE
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