Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation

          Share in the excitement of discovery!

Visiting the Gilder Center

Spectacular architecture designed to spark your curiosity. New exhibitions and immersive experiences that reveal nature’s hidden realms. A soaring space that connects to all the Museum has to offer. 

The new Gilder Center features new exhibition galleries and one-of-a-kind experiences, including an insectarium, butterfly vivarium, floor-to-ceiling collections displays, and more—and connects to the rest of the American Museum of Natural History on four floors.

Entry to the Gilder Center is included with Museum admission. Additional tickets are required for the Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium and the Invisible Worlds immersive experience.

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Adult stand holding a child inside the Richard Gilder Center, looking towards the skylight and glass entrance-way.  

 

 

More About the Architecture

It's being called “New York’s most exciting new building.” Inspired by natural formations that spark curiosity and exploration, the Gilder Center creates more than 30 connections among 10 of the Museum’s buildings to improve visitor circulation on campus. It was designed by Studio Gang, the international and urban practice design firm led by Jeanne Gang. 

 

The Gilder Center's unique, organic design is informed by the natural paths wind and water carve into landscapes that are exciting to explore, as well as the forms that water etches in blocks of ice. Visitors enter through the Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium, a sunlit central space notable for its seamless, undulating interior of arching walls, bridges, and caverns that invites everyone to explore by offering alluring glimpses of exhibitions, collections spaces, and classrooms on four levels. The Griffin Atrium, like much of the Gilder Center, was constructed by spraying structural concrete directly onto rebar without formwork. This spray technique, known as "shotcrete," was invented by Museum naturalist and taxidermist Carl Akeley and is finished by hand.

 

The Gilder Center facade is clad in Milford pink granite–the same stone used for the Museum's entrance on Central Park West. The rounded windows are made of bird-safe fritted glass. The diagonal pattern of the stone panels evokes both the phenomenon of geological layering and the richly textured surface of the stone masonry on the 77th Street side of the Museum.

The American Museum of Natural History gratefully acknowledges Richard Gilder and the Gilder Foundation, Inc., whose leadership support has made the construction of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation possible. 

The Gilder Center is also made possible thanks to the generous support of the City of New York, the Council of the City of New York, the Manhattan Borough President, the State of New York, the New York State Assembly, and the New York State Senate. 

Critical founding support has been provided by David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman; Kenneth C. Griffin; Allison and Roberto Mignone; the Davis Family; the Bezos Family Foundation; Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.; the Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family; Judy and Josh Weston; the Macaulay Family Foundation; Katheryn C. Patterson and Thomas L. Kempner, Jr.; New York Life Foundation; the Seedlings Foundation in honor of Michael Vlock; the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Foundation; Valerie and Jeffrey Peltier; Morgan Stanley; The Marc Haas Foundation in honor of Robert H. Haines; The Hearst Foundations; Joella and John Lykouretzos; the Yurman Family; the Charina Endowment Fund; Nancy Peretsman and Robert Scully; Shaiza Rizavi and Jonathan Friedland; Nancy B. and Hart Fessenden; Keryn and Ted Mathas; Elysabeth Kleinhans; the Estate of Margaret D. Bishop; the Henry Peterson Foundation; and an anonymous donor.

The American Museum of Natural History gratefully acknowledges Con Edison as the Gilder Center’s Lead Sustainability Sponsor. 

Family engagement and programming in the Gilder Center is proudly sponsored by the Eileen P. Bernard Exhibition Fund.

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