The American Land Museum at Wendover, Utah

The American Land Museum is a network of landscape exhibition sites being developed across the United States by the Center for Land Use Interpretation and other agencies. The purpose of the museum is to create a dynamic contemporary portrait of the nation, a portrait composed of the national landscape itself. Selected exhibition locations represent regional land use patterns, themes, and development issues. Within each exhibit location are a number of specified experiential zones with collections of material artifacts in the landscape, landmarks selected from among the field of existing structures.

Wendover, Utah, is the American Land Museum’s regional location in the Great Basin. Beyond the Museum’s Information Center, exhibits can be found among the waste disposal industries, explosives plants, survivability training sites, and weapons test areas that have developed within this broad, geomorphologically self-contained region.

One exhibit area is located in a zone called South Base, south of town, along the state line. South Base is an artificial island of ground, built in a sea of salty mud, on the edge of the expansive flats. The artifacts it contains include familiar and expressive forms, as well as enigmatic and opaque objects. Mythic structures such as labyrinths, tombs, and portals, meet the ephemeral architectures of Hollywood art directors. Incidental structures make accidental references to land art like Downward Blows and The Lightning Field. And glyphs from the last great war meet decayed ramps for launching experiments out into the uncertainty of the landscape void.

Emergency Training Prop

USGS Photorthographic Quadrangle (detail)

The Quonset

“Con Air” Film Set Prop: Tower

Stenciled Statement

Police Training Prop. Photo: Peter Harkawik

Volatile Gas Containment Vessel Test Area

Launch Pad Bunker

Wall Painting

Southbase View

Storage Igloo (Casino Lease)

“Desert Base Command” Sign. Photo: Peter Harkawik

“Desert Base Command” Sign (detail). Photo: Peter Harkawik

Launch Ramp Ruin

Emergency Training Props (temporary)

Earth Displaced by Ordinance Disposal

“The Hulk” Film Set Props in Dumpsters (temporary)

“Con Air” Film Set Props: Aviation Gauntlet (temporary)

Lightning Test Area, with Rocket Nose Cone

Police Training Area. Photo: Peter Harkawik

Photos from CLUI photo archive unless otherwise noted