Northern Highlight

Fairbanks, Alaska is an unassuming sort of place: the architecture is generally plain and the winter weather makes thermal underwear a blessing. Tourists use Fairbanks as a gateway to the subarctic wilderness, but a dramatic addition to the skyline is slowing down newcomers on their way through. It’s the striking Museum of the North.

At the end of a $42 million renovation, the museum has won praise for the extent to which it now references its surroundings. The exterior architecture was inspired in part by the tectonic plates that gave rise to Alaska’s mountains. Large windows flood the interior with light. In the new art gallery, paintings and photographs hang next to ceremonial objects and carvings by Alaskan natives—the message being that traditional crafts have as much cultural importance as fine art. But it’s the museum’s most innovative display that best captures the region. The Place Where You Go to Listen, the vision of Fairbanks artist John Luther Adams, is a computerized chamber that translates into light and synthesized sounds the cycles of the Alaskan wilderness—seismic activity, moon phases, positions of the sun, and so on. Data on these is gathered from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute and streamed live to the auditorium, sparking off an audiovisual show of cosmic intensity, all in real time. It’s a beautiful showpiece that, like the museum itself, lends even greater depth to an already stunning destination.