The iconic 52,000 sq. ft. facility houses focused Ute and Native Southwestern American Indian artifact collections as well as loaned materials from the National Museum of the American Indian. The building features contemporary materials reminiscent of traditional structures and fills in missing elements in design awareness across the Western Hemisphere's Indigenous architecture. The museum also houses 1500 artifacts. Living classrooms teach Ute culture, and with hundreds of recorded oral histories as well as a growing collection of archival books, films and photographs researchers will have access to important chapters in Native American history.