Construction of the Invisible Worlds Theater at the Gilder Center. Photo © Timothy Schenck, courtesy AMNH

To make way for the 230,000-square-foot project, while minimizing its impact on the surrounding Theodore Roosevelt Park, three structures that were part of the complex have been demolished. The strategy allowed the new construction to be inserted deeply into the museum’s existing footprint and resulted in an expression on the complex’s exterior that is relatively modest in scale—something that passersby on Columbus Avenue can now appreciate, nearly three years after the start of construction. The undulant addition, which will be clad in Milford pink granite (a material used on the main, Central Park West entrance), creates a fully accessible west entry on axis with 79th Street. Because of this positioning, visitors will be able view “Manhattan Henge” from within the building, points out Gang, using the term coined by AMNH astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to refer the phenomenon that occurs when the setting or rising sun aligns with the city’s street grid. “Gilder will allow visitors to make connections even on a planetary scale,” she says.

A rendering of the Gilder Center's atrium. Image © Neoscape, Inc.

Though seemingly compact on the outside, from the interior, the addition should feel more expansive—especially within the four-story skylit atrium that is now taking shape. The canyon-like space takes its cues from natural processes such as erosion and weathering, and from hydrologic flows. The organically curved walls comprise what Gang calls a “building within a building,” with the adjacent floors framing into it. The project team ruled out constructing this sculptural element in poured-in-place concrete since that method would have required laboriously built formwork and necessitated more regular and repetitive shapes to enable their reuse. Instead, the atrium has been made with schotcrete, a process coincidentally first developed in the early twentieth century by Carl Akeley, an AMNH taxidermist. The technique involves spraying concrete on an armature of rebar and metal mesh. Studio Gang refined its design for the shotcrete walls’ contours with physical mockups and specialized modelling software, paying particular attention to the “creases,” or edges, where the various curved surfaces meet. 

The atrium includes bridges and openings to make physical and visual links among the museum’s many spaces—and to make the museum’s previously confounding circulation more legible. Gang’s hope is that her intervention will spark a spirit of discovery in visitors. Once inside, she says, “people will see different pathways and feel like they want to explore.”

Perspective (top) and section (below). Drawings courtesy Studio Gang