Deer Valley Rock Art Center, Deer Valley, Arizona
From Archiplanet
 | Deer Valley Rock Art Center |
| Designer | Will Bruder |
| Location | Deer Valley, Arizona, United States |
| Date | 1992 to 1994 |
| Climate | desert |
| Context | suburban |
| Street Address | 3711 West Deer Valley Road
Deer Valley, Arizona Phoenix, Arizona |
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| Building Details | |
| Client | U.S. Corps of Engineers and Arizona State University |
| Area | 7,000 sf. |
The Deer Valley Rock Art Center represents a unique architectural solution featuring the sculptural use of precast concrete and weathering steel. This 7,000 square foot facility provides spaces for exhibit presentations, laboratory research, classroom teaching and curatorial preservation of ideas and materials related to the study of rock art. The building is sited at the juncture of the two-mile long earthen Adobe Mountain Dam and the Hedgpeth Hills Mountain formation. The building literally spans across the flood control dam's concrete outlet works. The building’s funnel-like, boomerang-shaped plan geometry serves as a metaphorical time machine connecting the visitor between the chaos of suburban contemporary Phoenix and the sanctuary of the sheltered natural desert landscape of the Hedgpeth mountainside, where a quarter mile long trail leads to over fifteen hundred primitive petroglyphs dating from 900-1100 A.D. Deer Valley Rock Art Center is a uniquely functional, economical, and poetic architectural statement whose strong crafting solves an unusual set of conditions. It is a celebration of the magic potentials of a concrete and metal architecture—as a linkage to place and culture, past and present.
