At first blush, the challenges were remarkably similar: design a major addition to a sprawling museum that had grown piecemeal over many decades, creating a new face for an old institution and cleaning up a host of nagging problems in the process; integrate architecture and landscape at an urban project set within an existing park; respect the historic fabric, but inject a big dose of bold design to energize the client’s mission. But New York isn’t Little Rock, and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) isn’t the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA). So Studio Gang developed schemes for the two projects that have strikingly different expressions. Though both might be described as “organic” in form, the one in New York draws its shape from geology, and the one in Little Rock conjures images of plants and flowers.

New entrances draw visitors to the Museum of Natural History (1 & 2) and the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (3 & top of page). Photos © Alvaro Keding/AMNH (1), Iwan Baan (2 & 3), click to enlarge.