Standing at 876 feet tall across 82 stories, Aqua Tower stands out as a community-incorporating skyscraper. Housing a hotel, offices, rental apartments, condos, parking, and a significant green roof, Aqua facilitates strong connections among residents and the city. The tower's innovative design captures and reimagines the organic human and outdoor interactions common at lower altitudes. Its unique appearance arises from varied floor slabs guided by factors like views, sunlight, and function. Thoughtful sculpting of each floor provides comfortable terraces for casual neighbor interactions and views of Chicago landmarks, shaped by density, environment, and use considerations.

Aqua Tower

This impressive museum was built in the Romanesque Revival style with pink granite, a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and marble floors.

The Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History houses the Museum’s new graduate program in comparative biology, the first museum program in the United States to grant PhDs. Occupying the top floor of the historic 1891 museum building designed by Josiah Cleveland Cady, the School includes a student lounge, a 25-person teaching lab, administrative offices, and a 50-person lecture hall. The project provides a home base for graduate students now scattered throughout the complex as well as a new identity for the program within the restored historic fabric of the building. The School is located along the “Golden Corridor of Science,” the monumentally scaled hallway that stretches more than 600 feet of the Museum’s upper floor. The heart of the complex is a double-height student lounge, ringed with a mezzanine with individual study carrels. A glazed wall opens the lounge to the corridor.

The original Hayden Planetarium, built in 1935, at the American Museum of Natural History was the fourth planetarium in the US. Designed by Trowbridge and Livingston, it sported an Art Deco concrete copper-covered dome, reflecting confidence in scientific progress. Inside, the planetarium housed state-of-the-art instruments, including the Zeiss II projector financed by Charles Hayden. The dome's interior was acoustically remarkable. The structure also featured an array of murals and an auditorium that projected past and future skies. The shows, blending science and optimism, aimed to soothe Depression-era fears. In WWII, the planetarium also assisted in training military personnel.&nbsp;

The Rose Center for Earth and Space redefines the identity of this venerable cultural and academic institution for the 21st century while respecting the historic architecture of the designated landmark. Along with the Arthur Ross Terrace, the Weston Pavilion and the renovated Theodore Roosevelt Park, The Rose Center completes the Museum’s north side. The iconic sphere, housed within a glass cube, contains the state-of-the art Hayden Planetarium and “Big Bang” theater, whose program describes the origins of the universe. The building itself is designed as a learning tool, as a visible expression of the science it contains. Its extraordinary curtain wall, structural system and lighting, its use of materials and color, its open planning and single, striking volumetric expression all reveal to the visitor an iconic example of building technology and science that makes this new building a worthy complement to the existing museum and an effective expression of the institution’s scientific and educational mission.

The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, the latest expansion of New York's historic American Museum of Natural History, responds to the urgent need for better science understanding and access to education. Created from within, the design enhances the Museum's functionality and visitor experience throughout the campus. The project establishes a new, accessible entrance and a strong east-west axis, creating over thirty connections between ten buildings and replacing former dead ends with continuous circulation. The Gilder Center introduces new exhibitions, education, collections, and research spaces, unveiling previously behind-the-scenes functions to the public and revealing the Museum's diverse collections and ongoing scientific research. Inspired by natural processes, the architecture mirrors a porous geological structure shaped by wind and water, with a central five-story atrium welcoming visitors. The atrium is supported by structural walls and arches that carry the building's load. Constructed with shotcrete, a technique used for infrastructure, the building boasts a seamless, visually unified interior that extends outward, harmonizing with the park and neighborhood. The atrium promotes energy efficiency by channeling light and air, and passive cooling is achieved through stone cladding, shaded windows, and vegetation. The Gilder Center, with its advanced environmental strategies and commitment to the natural world, exemplifies the Museum's mission.

AMNH Special Collections, Photographic Transparency Collection, 4 x 5

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, designed by Studio Gang and set in Theodore Roosevelt Park, connects 10 buildings across the Museum’s four-block campus, establishing continuous pathways to enhance visitor circulation.

Interior - early illustration -1877. New York City. The Presidential Visit - President Hayes participating in the opening ceremonies of the Museum of Natural History, Manhattan Square, Eighth Avenue and Seventy-Ninth to Eighty-First Street, on Saturday, December 22nd

Verso: The Theodore Roosevelt Memorial at the American Museum of Natural History was erected by the people of the State of New York as a tribute to a famous son who served as its Governor and later as the 26th President of the United States - a man who was renowned, also, for his interest in natural history and conservation. The architecture of the Memorial is in the classic style, the facade of which is set off by four iconic columns 54 feet high. Surmounting these columns are statues of Boone, Audubon, Clark, and Lewis, pioneers in the early exploration of our country. A bronze equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt by James Earle Fraser stands in front of the entrance. Giant Post Card. The American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. Series Code: 77746-B. Publisher: Dexter Press, Inc.

Verso: Mr. and Mrs. J Meade, Oak Island, Babylon, Long Island Dear Mr. and Mrs. Meade: We sent you a bag of stale bread for your chickens. Keep in a dry place. We are all well and hope you are the same. Louise

AMNH Special Collections, Photographic Transparency Collection, 35mm

AMNH Special Collections, Photographic Negative Collection, 8 x 10

AMNH Special Collections, Photographic Negative Collection, 4 x 5

AMNH Special Collections, Photographic Transparency Collection

AMNH Special Collections, Photographic Negative Collection, 5 x 7

Drawing of Hayden Planetarium interior, by Hugh Ferris of Trowbridge and Livingston, Architects, New York, May, 1934

American Museum of Natural History

Todd Shlieman talks about the Rose Center for Earth and Space- a new paradigm for planetaria based on transparency, openness and connectedness. The architect shares his excitement about being able to provide a vessel and an inspiration for learning about the universe through the design of his building.  


Founding principal of StudioGang, an architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. Known for an approach that foregrounds relationships between individuals, communities, and environments, Jeanne Gang is currently designing major projects throughout the Americas and Europe.

"The New York Times is currently running a campaign: “Truth, it’s more important now than ever.” Today, in what some are calling our “post-truth” world, the question of truth is something we confront in many different parts of architectural practice. In addition to materials, we also engage it interms of information, criticism, and representation—whether it’s renderings that are so realistic they fool us, or the diversity (or lack thereof) of the people who are represented in our images. Finally, there is also the question of truth in architectural history, which has traditionally been so narrow.There are many more architectures than those we learned in school." - Jeanne Gang

Jeanne Gang

Michael Kimmelman is the architecture critic of The New York Times. His work has often focused on urban affairs, public space, infrastructure and social equity as well as on new buildings and designs. He was the paper's chief art critic; and, based in Berlin, created the Abroad column, covering cultural and political affairs across Europe and the Middle East. In March, 2014, he was awarded the Brendan Gill Prize for his "insightful candor and continuous scrutiny of New York's architectural environment" that is "journalism at its finest."

Michael Kimmelman

Eben Klemm, a former research biologist, is especially interested in encouraging knowledge among bartenders concerning the basic chemical and physics principals that affect the materials they use in order to better understand the techniques they use. Klemm and his cocktails have been featured in such diverse local and national publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Food and Wine, Time Out New York, Popular Science, and Playboy. He has also made televised appearances include The Today Show, CBS's Early Show and ABC 20/20. His cocktail book for beginners, The Cocktail Primer, was published in December by Andrews McNeel.

Eben Klemm

at the center for architecture&nbsp;

AIA New York | Center for Architecture

Cocktails & Conversations: Jeanne Gang and Michael Kimmelman

Jeanne Gang, FAIA, is the founding principal of Studio Gang, an architecture and urbanism practice with offices in Chicago and New York. Jeanne works across scales and typologies to test how design can strengthen relationships between individuals, communities, and environments. Her interdisciplinary and research-driven approach has produced projects from multi-acre urban parks to super-tall towers.Organized by: AIANY Architecture Dialogue Committee

There are never any shortages of ways to vary gin and tonics, especially when the mind starts thinking of them in the late winter, when spring just can’t come soon enough. As you can see, local ingredients are a concept continually requested by the architects, and the request seemed especially germane taking into account Ms. Gang’s work.

Jeanne Gang

SITES

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS