Rift Museum
2018 Cultural Academic
A museum proposal uses distance, an underground approach, and a changing interior to question how the natural landscape is represented.
- Year
- 2018
- Location
- Minnesota, United States
- Typology
- Cultural
- Discipline
- Architecture
- Status
- Academic
- Institution
- University of Minnesota
- Contribution
- Solo undergraduate design project.
- Advisors
- Critics: David Dimond and Doug Bergert
Rift Museum is conceived in relation to the Bell Museum and its depictions of the Minnesota landscape. Its program brings portrayal, provocation, and performance together, asking visitors to move between an idealized view of nature and a less settled account of environmental change.
The proposed landscape uses a ha-ha to preserve the apparent continuity of the prairie while introducing water retention and native planting. An underground approach controls entry to the museum. Inside, a changing surface opens and closes around the visitor, shaping views and light while obscuring the structure. Calvin Rogers developed the project as a solo undergraduate studio design.