Musical Instrument Museum

The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, designed by Richard Varda, RSP Architects, is a large museum with five galleries, a café and a 300-seater music theatre. The collection of 10,000 musical instruments from different eras and regions is a celebration of world culture through the shared language of music. The floors, walls and ceilings all evoke a typical, stratified Arizona landscape while also playing into the rhythms of musical composition and the characteristics of the instruments. Mapei’s contribution to MIM was to supply the products needed to fix in place the ceramic tiles and natural stone cladding. The porcelain stoneware tiles used for the gallery floors, corridors and café were laid using Ultracontact. The same product was also adopted for the stoneware tiles in the bathroom and the clinker floor in the kitchen. The grouting of the joints was done with Keracolor S, except in the bathrooms, where Opticolor was used, and in the kitchen, where Kerapoxy IEG was chosen because of its high chemical and stain resistance. Ultraflex LFT was the adhesive of choice for the ceramic tiles in some of the bathrooms and galleries, on the curved walls in the atrium and on the walls and floors in the café because it is non-sag and provides excellent adhesion. The grouting for these tiles was done with Opticolor as it is particularly suited to curved surfaces. Ultraflex 3 was the adhesive used for the natural stone slabs in the auditorium.

Mapei
Via Cafiero, 22
I - 20158 Milano
Tel. +39 02 37673.1
Fax + 39 02 37673214
E-mail: [email protected]
www.mapei.com