studio gang unveils new details of its gilder center at new york’s natural history museum

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 in winter 2022-23, 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.

entrance view | visualizations © neoscape, inc.

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 trailblaze 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.’

entrance view

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.

the kenneth c. griffin exploration atrium

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.

louis v. gerstner, jr. collections core

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