studio gang unveils new images of its natural history museum in NYC

opening this winter at the natural history museum

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York announces plans to open the Studio Gang-designed Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. The sculptural new center is expected to open to the public on May 4th, 2023, and will transform the experience of the entire museum. The space will advance public science education for all ages at a time when the role of science in addressing society’s most pressing issues is urgent.

See designboom’s previous coverage of the project’s groundbreaking here.

October 2022 progress | image © Timothy Schenck | @timothyschenck

a space of exploration by studio gang

Designed by Jeanne Gang and Studio Gang (see more here), the American Museum of Natural History‘s new Gilder Center will invite visitors to explore the fascinating, far-reaching relationships among the museum’s varied collections. The space will trail-blaze research initiatives, educational programs, and exhibits.

Physically, the 230,000-square-foot gilder center connects many of the museum’s buildings, creating a continuous campus across four city blocks as envisioned more than 150 years ago. Conceptually, the project provides a dramatic embodiment of one of the museum’s essential messages, ‘that all life is connected.’

October 2022 progress | image © Timothy Schenck

new details announced

In announcing the scheduled opening, President Ellen Futter also unveiled new details of key components of the Gilder Center.

The Kenneth C. Griffin exploration atrium will take shape as a soaring, four-story-high civic space that serves as a gateway into the Gilder Center, flowing through the museum to create a connection from central park west to Columbus Avenue, and opening onto Theodore Roosevelt park.

The Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center will become a dynamic hub that connects visitors with the museum library’s many unparalleled resources and helps patrons navigate flows of information, both print and digital.

October 2022 progress | image © Timothy Schenck

The Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core will introduce three stories of visible research and collections spaces providing glimpses into the museum’s collections of millions of scientific specimens and displays offering insight into the evidence and process of scientific discovery in various types of collections, from fossils to insects, with the first and second floors supported by the Macaulay Family Foundation.

The 5,000-square-foot Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family Insectarium, will be the first museum gallery in more than 50 years dedicated to the most diverse — and a critically important — group of animals on earth.

October 2022 progress | image © Timothy Schenck

The new year-round, 3,000-square-foot Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium will become a permanent exhibition where visitors can mingle with free-flying butterflies, a group that are one of nature’s vital environmental barometers. Lastly, the extraordinary 360-degree invisible worlds theater is to become an innovative melding of science and art that will give visitors a breathtakingly beautiful and imaginative yet scientifically rigorous immersion into the networks of life at all scales.

October 2022 progress | image © Timothy Schenck

entrance view | visualizations © Neoscape, inc.

entrance view

the Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core

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the gottesman research library and learning center

march 2022 progress | image © timothy schenck, courtesy of the american museum of natural history

project info:

project title: The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation

architecture: Studio Gang | @studiogang

location: American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA

project team: Studio Gang, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, And Reed Hilderbrand, Aecom Tishman, Arup, Atelier Ten, Burohappold Engineering, Davis Brody Bond, Langan Engineering, Renfro Design Group, Tamschick Media+space With Bma Boris Micka Associates, Venable Llp And Akrf, And Zubatkin Owner Representation

donor: Richard Gilder And The Gilder Foundation, Inc.

completion: expected February 2023

visualizations: Neoscape, inc. | @neoscapeinc