To my surprise, in the middle of the block along Columbus Avenue, I am once again refreshed by nature. There is a building that resembles a huge boulder. Clad in Milford pink granite that references the museum’s east entrance, its windows are shaped like the wind-swept cliffs of some ancient canyon. It is The 230,000-square-foot, $465 million Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, and it is the newest—if unusual—addition to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).
A building that looks like a natural rock formation is unexpected among the Manhattan grid. It would be more likely found at a zoo, or a theme park, or perhaps along Route 66, where buildings that look like large objects define the landscape—their shapes often advertising their function, such as a hot-dog-shaped hot dog stands or giant donuts attracting potential customers. Long Island’s celebrated “Big Duck” duck farmstand has become an icon for the region and a reference point for architects.
The Gilder Center is just one of a few Manhattan “ducks.” Perhaps the most well-known is Morris Lapidus’s Maritime Hotel, the beloved westside establishment with circular boat windows. However, while the geologically inflected design for AMNH does advertise the function of the AMNH, it does more than just look like rocks or or glaciers. “Our starting point for the design wasn’t necessarily visuals of nature,” Studio Gang principal Jeanne Gang said. “But once we started thinking like that, we became inspired by natural forms like canyons and melted ice”
The new building uses these highly visual design strategies to create new publics as the sculptural facade wraps around the building and into the building’s interior, creating a five-story cave-like atrium with a grand staircase at its center that acts as a spectacular welcoming space for visitors.
“It is almost like a solid object that has been carved out,” Gang said. “We used software and physical models to simulate the effects of these natural processes, such as water flowing over and eroding the surfaces.”
The new building uses these highly visual design strategies to create new publics as the sculptural facade wraps around the building and into the building’s interior, creating a five-story cave-like atrium with a grand staircase at its center that acts as a spectacular welcoming space for visitors.
“It is almost like a solid object that has been carved out,” Gang said. “We used software and physical models to simulate the effects of these natural processes, such as water flowing over and eroding the surfaces.”
The holes in the atrium’s interior “facade” were determined by constraints such as views, structure, and circulation paths. The structural concrete is left exposed as the finish material, helping people understand how the building was made and aligning with the museum’s mission to expand education around natural history. “What the museum liked is that people on a basic level would say, “That is something I know,” Gang said. “It was a good alignment between the physics of the structures and the shapes that the museum felt their audience would connect with.”
Connecting the museum’s 10 buildings, the atrium’s voluptuous concrete recalls early experiments in reinforced concrete such as the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. The rock-like walls are made of “shotcrete,” a technique where builders spray concrete over a skeleton of rebar and smooth it by hand. It was developed in the early 1900s by AMNH taxidermist Carl Akeley, and it is still used at the museum in the design of taxidermy dioramas. It is also used at zoos to create animal habitats. (In the late 19th century and early 20th, concrete was often marketed as “artificial stone,”)
Connecting the museum’s 10 buildings, the atrium’s voluptuous concrete recalls early experiments in reinforced concrete such as the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. The rock-like walls are made of “shotcrete,” a technique where builders spray concrete over a skeleton of rebar and smooth it by hand. It was developed in the early 1900s by AMNH taxidermist Carl Akeley, and it is still used at the museum in the design of taxidermy dioramas. It is also used at zoos to create animal habitats. (In the late 19th century and early 20th, concrete was often marketed as “artificial stone,”)
By wrapping the atrium in this material, it gives a bold, expressive wrapper to the more quotidian, pragmatic architecture behind—where collections, education centers, and galleries await visitors. The design recalls old Western false front buildings with front walls that extend above the roofline to appear larger and act as signs advertising their function. However, the atrium’s sculptural forms are more than a typical false front, as they act as the building’s structure as well.
The visual connection to the research materials is a public interface between the back of house and the public spaces, giving glimpses of the different functions of the museum, and offering views into the education, research, and gallery spaces. “We recognize that most people who come through our doors don’t even know we have research collections,” AMNH Dean of Science for Collections Scott A. Schaefer said. “The new building brings that research out into the open and lets the public know what we have and why.”
It is similar to the strategy used at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, where New York architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro placed apertures in the museum’s archival spaces, exposing their contents to the public spaces such as the lobby and staircases, which share an organic, sinuous aesthetic.
The building is very contemporary, especially in a city full of straightforward corporate boxes. If those rectilinear, repetitive glass and steel buildings represent one vision of the future, then the Gilder Center’s nature-inspired forms are another.
It is similar to the strategy used at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, where New York architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro placed apertures in the museum’s archival spaces, exposing their contents to the public spaces such as the lobby and staircases, which share an organic, sinuous aesthetic.
The building is very contemporary, especially in a city full of straightforward corporate boxes. If those rectilinear, repetitive glass and steel buildings represent one vision of the future, then the Gilder Center’s nature-inspired forms are another.
