The $465 million Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation is opening to the public today (4 May) at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, a major scientific and cultural institution.
Designed by Studio Gang, the new wing is home to research facilities, scientific collections, new exhibits, an insectarium, and a butterfly vivarium.
The 230,000-square-foot Gilder Center also enhances the museum’s visitor experience, connecting 10 buildings that were constructed over nearly 150 years.
“It will be a great joy to welcome visitors to the new Gilder Center, as it heralds a new era of exploring the wonders of nature at the museum,” said Sean Decatur, president of the American Museum of Natural History.
The new centre features six floors above ground, four of which are open to the public, and one below ground. Visitors can explore three levels of displays featuring more than 3,000 objects.
$465m Gilder Center opens in New York
On the first floor, guests can experience the 5,000-square-foot insectarium, home to 18 species of live insects, digital exhibits, models and pinned specimens.
Here, highlights include oversized models of honeybees mounted overhead, and an 8,000-lb resin model of a beehive.
The insectarium also includes a transparent skybridge built as a route for leafcutter ants in one of the world’s largest live leafcutter ant displays.
Above the insectarium is the 2,500-square-food butterfly vivarium, which houses 1,000 free-flying butterflies of up to 80 species.
Jeanne Gang, founding principal and partner of Studio Gang, said the building “is designed to invite exploration and discovery that is not only emblematic of science, but also such a big part of being human”.
The exhibits were created by COST of Wisconsin, a specialist in museum exhibit fabrication.
Bugs, butterflies and ‘Invisible World’s
“It aims to draw everyone in – all ages, backgrounds, and abilities – to share the excitement of learning about the natural world,” Gang added.
On the third floor of the Gilder Center, guests can enjoy a 360-degree immersive experience that shows how all life on the planet is connected.
In the ‘Invisible Worlds’ experience, visitors become part of the story as their movements affect the images of living networks projected all around them.
As for learning, the wing includes 18 new, renovated or repurposed classrooms. Also on the upper floors of the Gilder Center are research spaces and laboratories, and the museum’s ichthyology collection of more than 2.5 million research specimens.
Ellen Futter, the museum’s former president, said the new facility “fulfills a critical need at a critical time: to help visitors to understand the natural world more deeply, to appreciate that all life is interdependent, to trust science, and to be inspired to protect our precious planet and its myriad life forms”.
Images: American Museum of Natural History
