The site for the Marcia and John Price Museum Building occupies the southern end of the campus mall, creating a strong physical terminus that opens to an important vista. The architectural language of the campus—largely built in the 1960s—informed the overarching design decisions, and the building comprises five rectangular volumes that step up around a centrally located grand gallery. 

A grand stair orchestrates the museum’s overall composition: starting from the campus mall outside, it leads the visitor through the museum entry, into the grand gallery, and finally to a grand stair that connects with the upper levels of gallery space and culminates in a sculpture window oriented toward Mt. Olympus. On the outside, this sense of procession is reinforced by the sequential arrangement of rectangular volumes, each of which is clad in a unique brick pattern. Two window types define these masses—recessed horizontal bands and projected openings—and add another layer of abstract formal expression.  

Inside, the museum’s ground floor contains the grand gallery, temporary galleries, an art education center, a bookstore, a café and an auditorium; while the second floor houses galleries for the permanent collection, administrative offices and a library. At the museum’s core, a grand 55-foot-tall gallery crowned by a semi-translucent clerestory invites reflection and pause.