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When he set out in search of inspiration and ideas from which to design a landmark museum for Utah, architect Todd Schliemann criss-crossed the state in a Jeep, examining the landscapes and cultures defining Utah's sense of place.
"What struck me most of all is the land itself is architectural: the color, the texture, the scale and the way light over time affects its massing and presence," said Schliemann, a partner in the New York City firm Polshek Partnership Architects. The fruits of his investigation will be a copper-sheathed museum terraced in three levels into a shoreline bench where the waves of an ancient lake once lapped against the Wasatch foothills behind Salt Lake City.
"It's a metaphor for the land," the architect said at a ceremony Thursday attended by top University of Utah administrators, as well as academic and community leaders. Schliemann pulled the veil from a scaled model of the Utah Museum of Natural History's future home, sparking a round of applause and a few "ahhhs." Groundbreaking on the $100 million project is scheduled for July 29 and completion of the 160,000-square-foot structure is expected by the beginning of 2011.
Officials also announced a $15 million gift from Kennecott Utah Copper, a major mining concern with a long-standing ties to the museum and the author of the world's largest mineral excavation across the valley at Bingham Canyon.
"Not only will it help the Utah Museum of Natural History build its beautiful new facility, but it will benefit all Utahns by supporting the museum's educational mission throughout the state," said U. President Michael Young.
The new building will be named after Kennecott's corporate parent. London-based Rio Tinto maintains a global reach as a leading producer of copper, iron, aluminum and other industrial metals.
"Through this partnership, we will continue to introduce youth to careers in the natural sciences," Kennecott CEO Andrew Harding said. "We also hope to expose people to mining and show them how it is important to modern life."
The Kennecott gift brings total fund-raising on the project to $81 million, enough to put up the building, which recently won a $25 million appropriation from the Legislature.
The selection of the site, just south of Red Butte Garden, was not popular among nature lovers who opposed the sacrifice of cherished open space along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. But the 17-acre site is the last of three undeveloped lots in Research Park and would likely become the site of a corporate building had the museum not claimed it, proponents say.
"With the new design we're allowing people to connect with the wild lands backed up against the heritage preserve," museum director Sarah George said. The museum aims for gold-certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by minimizing its footprint, water use and energy needs.