Newsmakers: Studio Ma’s Christiana Moss on Building Museums for a Hotter, More Expensive World

The Western Spirit Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona, was a strange proposition for architect Christiana Moss when she first began designing it. There was a site, provided by the city, but not much money. There wasn’t even a permanent collection. The building would have to come together, as Moss puts it, like “stone soup.” It worked. Designed by Moss’s Phoenix-based firm Studio Ma, the museum, also known as Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, opened in