Natural History Museum of Utah

Utah’s singular landscape and the ways in which humans have engaged its varied character over time are the touchstone for an architecture that expresses the State’s cultural and natural contexts. Together with the interpretive exhibit program and landscape design, the architecture creates an inspirational visitor experience and sponsors curiosity and inquiry.

The Museum rests on a series of constructed terraces that step up the hill and lay along the contours of the site with minimal disruption to the adjacent natural landscape; the building’s powerful jagged profile references the mountains beyond. Like the Bonneville Shoreline Trail that traverses the mountains, a series of ascending switchbacks defines the path to the building.

Inspired by Utah’s distinctive slot canyons, a dramatic central public space – the Canyon – organizes the visitor experience, dividing the building programmatically. Bridges and vertical circulation organize the visitor sequence; views south across the basin expand the museumgoer experience; shafts of sunlight penetrate the apex, suffusing the space with natural light; and a grand vertical scale uplifts and inspires.

The empirical (north) wing supports formal scientific exploration and an objective understanding of our world, including research laboratories, conservation labs, collection storage and administration. The interpretive (south) wing houses exhibits that interpret the Museum’s extraordinary collection and guide the public through an exploration of the delicate balance of life on earth and its natural history.