An art museum has opened in the American town of Cedar City. The complex shape of the building by Lawrence Scarpa and Angela Brooks was suggested by the unique sandstone canyons of neighboring national parks.

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The Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA) is part of a large-scale initiative to form a whole artistic cluster between the campus of the local university and the city center. Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts covers an area of ​​more than two hectares and combines several open and closed theater venues, as well as various exhibition and educational spaces.

The art museum itself has an area of ​​just over 2,600 square meters. m and occupies the southwestern corner of a rectangular area. It is planned to store and exhibit a collection of paintings by local artist Jim Jones and other local stars, as well as works by students of the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Utah. Special educational programs will allow students to study in practice the museum business and management in the field of art. Therefore, in addition to the exhibition halls, training rooms, offices and meeting rooms are provided inside.

The one-story building received a complex, massive and dramatic shape with grooves in the upper part. For greater similarity with the mountain plateaus, architects used concrete panels with a special wrinkled texture in the exterior. The canyon-roof covers not only the building, but also a part of the territory, forming a semi-open public space of almost 560 square meters. m. And it also creates various sheds, thanks to which it was possible to use large fragments of glazing: both the interior rooms are protected from overheating and views of the stunning mountain landscapes are preserved. Finally, a unique roof is also an important element of sustainable construction, as it is part of the rain and melt water collection system.