Nestled in the foothills above Salt Lake City, the $102-million Natural History Museum of Utah in the Rio Tinto Center began welcoming visitors in mid-November. The new museum rests on a section of what was once the shoreline of ancient Lake Bonneville. It has already garnered praise from the design and building community as well as those wishing to explore the state’s unique people, geology and history.
The NHMU, administered by the University of Utah, sits on a 17-acre site on the upper southeastern edge of campus with sweeping views of the Salt Lake Valley. The 163,000-sq-ft museum is now home to a collection of around 1.2-million artifacts, including items from Utah’s Native American tribes, regional flora and fauna specimens and the state’s sizable number of dinosaur fossils.