Museum at Prairiefire, Overland Park, Kansas, USA

© Bernard P. Friel/Universal Images Group via Getty Image

Ablaze with colour. International Museum Day

To mark International Museum Day, we’re featuring the colourful Museum at Prairiefire in the US state of Kansas, which opened in 2014. Its striking glass exterior is a nod to the intentional prairie fires that were an integral part of farm life here. The glass is dichroic, which means that its colour changes with the light of the day. The museum is itself a work of art. Devoted mostly to natural history, it borrows displays from larger museums and hosts at least two major travelling exhibitions a year. It might not yet have achieved the fame of the Louvre, the Met or the Natural History Museum but to those who find beauty behind its walls, it is no less enriching.

International Museum Day was created in 1977 to boost awareness of museums as a means of ‘cultural exchange… cooperation and peace among peoples.’ It's observed on or around 18 May by more than 37,000 museums in 158 countries and territories.