News came out last year that the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) had a plan for a $325 million dollar expansion of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation. And now it looks like there’s finally some movement on the project.
The idea, which was a competition won by Jeanne Gang, the founder of Studio Gang, has received some backlash from the surrounding community. Since it calls for taking over a part of the Theodore Roosevelt Park on the southwestern corner of the museum, folks are worried about tearing down part of what makes the museum so scenic and rested within the nature that almost entirely surrounds the museum. In fact, here are the design layouts of the new expansion plan, which will prove to be another building to add to the city’s already iconic skyline and even more iconic museum.
The museum did not yet show the designs to the neighborhood group and community members who are calling the expansion an outrage, but it will need to go through a public approval process in order to get the go ahead, which also calls for going through the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which monitors plenty of the city’s museum land. This will prove tricky for the museum to get started on working on the expansion considering that the city technically owns the small plot of land on Theodore Roosevelt Park and therefore has the final say on how it is used.