Marcia and John Price Museum Building

At a glance

Project by: Machado and Silvetti Associates
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

Preview image

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates)

© Michael Moran

Project images

	View of overall entrance © Michael Moran View project image
	View of entrance © Michael Moran View project image
	Grand Gallery window © Michael Moran View project image
	View of south façade © Michael Moran View project image

Architect's statement

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.

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.

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.

All images for Marcia and John Price Museum Building

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9912 large)

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9912 original)

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9911 large)

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9911 original)

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9910 large)

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9910 original)

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9909 large)

Marcia and John Price Museum Building (Machado and Silvetti Associates) (image #9909 original)

Details/Credits

Client: University of Utah
Location: University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Principal designers: Rodolfo Machado (Principal in Charge), Jorge Silvetti (Consulting Principal)
Design team: Peter Lofgren, Theodore Touloukian, Max Moore, Steven Chung, Michael Yusem, Mario D’Artista, Chris Dagg, Andrew Grote, Sarah Holmes, Ben Karty, Adam Omansky
Contractor: Layton Construction Company, Inc.
Built-up area: 84,000 sf
Cost of construction: $15 million
Project start: 1998
Completion: 2000
Photographs: Michael Moran

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