After apprenticing with Paolo Soleri and Gunnar Birkets, Will Bruder (from Milwaukee) started a career in the desert (in Phoenix). He approaches architecture as "functional fine art based on site and user needs," a valid phiosophy he has used in buildings across the American southwest. His firm has specialized in designing structures that are sensitive (in material, design and orientation) to the landscape, as well as specializing in innovative library designs, both in the southwest and all across the United States.

 

 

Phoenix Central Library
(2001) Phoenix, Arizona, United States

Will Bruder's hometown library, designed by a firm that now seems to design a lot of libraries in other people's hometowns. The Phoenix Central Library includes a floating ceiling and the Crystal Canyon, a five story atrium with skylights designed to track the desert sun.

Click here to learn about the Burton Barr (Phoenix) Central Library, as well as all of the fine (local) services they offer

 

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
(1999) Scottsdale, Arizona, United States

A great building for a great (small) museum, reason alone to go to Scottsdale. Off the lobby are two permanent works- a glass wall by that glass wall guy (James Carpenter) and James Turrell's wonderful Knight Rise- so much more than just a hole in the ceiling.

Click here to learn about the Scottsdale Museum of Art, with large rotating galleries there's (probably) always something new to see

 

Nevada Museum of Art
(2003) Reno, Nevada, United States

The best building in Reno (and probably in Nevada), the Nevada Museum of Art is hard to miss. It houses what could best be described as an erratic collection of temporary exhibitions, but I guess that doesn't matter because the building makes up for it.

Click here to go to the NMA site. There are lots of good pictures of the building as well as a list of current and upcoming exhibitions