The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at The American Museum of Natural History, opens February 17, 2023
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“The American Museum of Natural History revealed how the vision for its Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation is rapidly taking shape in steel, glass, and artfully shaped ‘shotcrete,’ as the Museum released new in-process photographs showing the soaring, light-filled spaces that will welcome visitors when the Gilder Center opens to the public on February 17, 2023.
With spectacular architecture designed by Studio Gang, the international architecture and urban design practice led by Jeanne Gang, the 230,000-square-foot Gilder Center project invites exploration of the fascinating, far-reaching relationships among species that comprise life on Earth and reveals connections across the Museum’s rich collections, trailblazing research initiatives, educational programs, and exhibition galleries. Physically, the Gilder Center connects many of the Museum’s buildings, creating a continuous campus across four city blocks as envisioned more than 150 years ago. Intellectually, it provides a dramatic embodiment of one of the Museum’s essential messages: all life is connected.” — American Museum of Natural History
Museum President Ellen V. Futter said, “In a time when the need for science literacy has never been more urgent, we are thrilled and proud to be nearing the long-awaited opening date for the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, a major new facility that will transform both the work of our museum and the cultural landscape of New York City. In its exhibits and programs, and in the astonishing architecture that presents them to the world, the Gilder Center weds evidence-based thinking and transporting experiences that capture exploration and innovative scientific discovery.”
Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium. The Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium at the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, designed by Studio Gang, at the American Museum of Natural History. October 2022 construction view. View from the top of the staircase.
Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium. The Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium at the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, designed by Studio Gang, at the American Museum of Natural History. October 2022 construction view. View west from inside the Griffin Atrium.
Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium. The Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium at the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, designed by Studio Gang, at the American Museum of Natural History. October 2022 construction view. View from the fourth-floor bridge looking west toward Columbus Avenue and Theodore Roosevelt Park.
Entrance. Designed by Studio Gang, the international architecture and urban design practice led by Jeanne Gang, the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation project will feature an immersive experience that reveals the natural world through spectacular visualizations of scientific data, an insectarium dedicated to the most diverse group of animals on Earth, a permanent butterfly vivarium, a redesigned library, state-of-the-art classrooms, and more.
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core will house close to 4 million scientific specimens, mostly contained in the five-story Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core, a vertical collections facility featuring three stories of floor-to-ceiling exhibits representing every area of the Museum’s collections in vertebrate and invertebrate biology, paleontology, geology, anthropology, and archaeology. The collections and exhibits on the first and second floors of the Collections Core are supported by the Macaulay Family Foundation.
The Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium, a soaring, four-story civic space that serves as a new gateway into the Museum from Columbus Avenue, flowing through the campus to create a visitor path from Theodore Roosevelt Park to Central Park West.
The David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center will be a dynamic hub that connects visitors with the Museum Library’s unparalleled resources.
The Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium, a permanent exhibition where visitors can mingle with up to 80 species of free-flying butterflies—and sometimes experience one landing on them.
The Gilder Center, with exhibition design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, will feature: The Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium, The David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center, The five-story Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core, The 5,000-square-foot Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family Insectarium, The year-round, 3,000-square-foot Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium and Invisible Worlds.
Images courtesy American Museum of Natural History.
