Richard Gilder Center for Science Education & Innovation (New York City, New York) | Modern (architecture), futuro house

 Modern (architecture), futuro house

studiogang.com/project/gilder-center
www.archdaily.com/1002840/gilder-center-studio-gang
The most recent addition to the museum, the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation is a dramatic departure visually from the older museum buildings. Designed by Jeanne Gang (of Studio Gang Architects) in 2020, it is clad in an undulating, organic facade of light-grey stone and glass. The theme is intended to reference an undulating facade inspired by natural earth processes and rock formations. The new building serves to link many of the other buildings, vastly improving visitor circulation and experience, as well as providing a new showpiece entrance for the west side of the complex on Columbus Avenue.

The design maintains the current heights of the museum building complex on its western side, placing the Columbus Avenue façade at the same height as the buildings on either side of the new entrance. On the south side, the façade is aligned with the adjacent building and steps back to meet the bordering building to the north.

The centerpiece of the 230,000-square-foot center is the Central Exhibition Hall, supported by the Collections Core, The Invisible Worlds Theater, Insect Hall, a new museum library, labs and classrooms, and exhibition niches - a series of open, recessed chambers. The design encourages visitors to move beneath and across connective bridges and along sculpted walls with openings that reveal the museum’s many programs. The Central Exhibition Hall is an atrium with cavernous, abstract interiors, comprising textured walls and pathways, that form a continuation of the rock-like exterior. A large skylight tops the addition's atrium, bringing in additional natural light.

It is slated to be completed by 2022.

www.amnh.org/about/gilder-center