Logan, UT…Utah State University’s (USU) Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA/the Museum) will open the Wanlass Center for Art Education and Research (Wanlass Center) on April 29, 2025.
Designed by Sparano + Mooney Architecture (SMA), the new $7.6 million cultural facility demonstrates how museums can adapt to better serve their communities in the 21st century. NEHMA’s premier collection of modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on the art of the American West will be more accessible through visible storage and flexible display areas where museum staff can select and display objects as needed for classes, researchers, and the public. The facility works in tandem with the Museum’s critically acclaimed exhibitions and programs without adding traditional gallery space. Visitors may use the new facility in a customized way to support curriculum and academic or personal learning interests. The facility has the capacity to add fresh insights to the depth of education for all students, scholars, and the public and secure NEHMA’s position as a national leader of museums focused on American art.
This is the second capital facility project for NEHMA in ten years. In 2018, NEHMA added a 7,500 square-foot addition and a complete renovation to its original 1982 Edward Larabee-Barnes-designed 20,000-square foot building. The 10,000-square-foot Wanlass Center facility enables access to artworks via interactive learning opportunities while also doubling the Museum’s collection storage capacity, allowing for growth and improved access.
Large, glazed panels reveal selections from the collection in an “open” storage system. The Art Study Room, with direct proximity to the art storage area, features collection material on integrated easels for a direct experience with artworks. The Research Library houses the Museum’s publications and artists’ material and a kiosk to explore the collections and request to view objects. The Art Classroom provides another opportunity for curation with safe art displays in a studio space for K-12 students and community programming.
SMA principal John Sparano, FAIA, and project architect Seth Striefel, RA, worked in close collaboration with NEHMA’s Executive Director and Chief Curator Katie Lee-Koven, lead donor George Wanlass, and USU’s Office of Facilities to realize the vision for the building’s full, multidisciplinary program. Spindler Construction Corporation served as general contractor. The project was launched in spring of 2022, with the planning, design, engineering, and construction documents completed the following spring and construction beginning in summer of 2023.
Having been involved with the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art since its founding in 1984, longtime Museum supporter and art collector George Wanlass has watched how NEHMA’s collection inspires and supports learning for all ages. “Art education has the power to unlock creativity in each of us,” Wanlass states. His desire to support this facility is to provide even more access to the Museum’s collection so that more people of all ages can have enriching experiences with art.
NEHMA Executive Director Lee-Koven said, “The Wanlass Center for Art Education and Research will be a place where scholars, USU students, K-12 classes, and the community are welcomed to interface with artwork and NEHMA’s collection of over 5,900 works of American art featuring artists such as Ruth Awasa, Viola Frey, Agnes Pelton, Ed Ruscha, and Henrietta Shore in a more intimate, focused, and accessible environment. It reinforces NEHMA’s position as one of the top modern and contemporary American art museums in the region and expands opportunities for engagement with art and one another. We are profoundly grateful to George Wanlass as well as the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation, the George and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, the National Endowment for Humanities, the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, the Dick and Timmy Burton Foundation, the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation, the Diane and Sam Stewart Family Foundation, and many others whose generosity have made the creation of this facility possible.”
The facility’s architecture is designed to integrate with the adjacent Museum and the campus’ Fine Arts Complex while establishing its own identity and presence on campus. The materials include a building cladding system that references aspects of the Museum’s collection: differing bent-zinc panels are punctuated by projected steel surrounds painted in vibrant colors inspired by artwork. Louvers on the façade have a single side with color, providing a change in perspective as one moves around the building.
The Art Classroom features terrazzo-inspired large-format porcelain tile flooring, white ash cabinetry, quartz countertops, and a white maple door. The space also includes views into the Art Collection Storage and a custom-glass art display case. The Study Room and Research Library finishes include rift-cut white oak flooring and cabinetry, quartz countertops, and white maple doors. Most of the walls are covered in a custom art easel system with a canted face and drop-down shelves.
Sparano said the Wanlass Center is “designed to provide rich learning experiences that can evolve over time. Its multi-purpose work areas, classrooms, and visible storage components offer a variety of modes of engagement with the artworks and enable the Museum to share how it stores and cares for its collection and how it facilitates research.”
About the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary visual art to promote dialogue about ideas fundamental to contemporary society. NEHMA provides meaningful engagement with art from the 20th and 21st centuries to support the educational mission of Utah State University, in Logan, Utah. NEHMA offers complementary public programs such as lectures, panels, tours, concerts, and symposia to serve the university and regional community. Admission is free and open to the public.
More information: artmuseum.usu.edu
