The American Museum of Natural History is looking to the future.
The museum’s trustees approved plans by Jeanne Gang of Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects for a $325 million new addition to its Upper West Side building.
The new 218,000-square-foot space – to be called the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation – will feature vast, open interiors and undulating curved surfaces in contrast to the existing building’s Neoclassical squareness.
The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission must still approve the plans. If it does, the new addition is slated to be completed by late 2019 or early 2020, the New York Times reported.
Plans call for the demolition of three existing buildings at the site so as to take up less new space, a move seemingly meant to address concerns expressed by Upper West residents that the new addition would impinge on Theodore Roosevelt Park, which lies just behind the museum.
Gang’s design also limits the height of the new structure, keeping it entirely below the existing cornice line. [NYT] – Ariel Stulberg