The International Quilt Study Center and Museum provides a dramatic setting for the study and display of quilts while providing a signature gateway to the East Campus of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. The brief was two-fold: to safely store and provide appropriate spaces for staff and volunteers to conduct the restoration, study, and documentation of some two-thousand quilts; and to provide public access to environmentally appropriate galleries for the display of the rotating quilt collection exhibit. The LEED-Silver Center is a compact three-story brick building combining simply massed volumes housing the galleries and their support with a bowed facade composed of glass panels “stitched together” to create a large-scale pattern. As in a quilt, the building is organized in layers. The outer layer, comprising the transparent public spaces to the east and support spaces to the west, together enclose and protect the innermost layer, the windowless quilt storage and exhibition areas. The path of travel from the reception hall and galleries is a journey from daylight to the controlled light of the exhibits. A curved stepped ramp runs from the lobby along the east facade, leading visitors up to the light-filled second-floor reception hall overlooking the landscaped forecourt.

Photos by Peter Aaron / OTTO