The 230,000-square-foot, $465 million Gilder Center has six public-access stories and one underneath. It adds a new entry on the Museum’s western side, at Columbus Avenue and 79th Street, in Theodore Roosevelt Park, and develops 33 connections between 10 Museum buildings to interconnect the whole property.

From Columbus Avenue, the Gilder Center looks like a park building, with the same height and curving shapes as the earlier Museum buildings on either side. Working with park users, Reed Hilderbrand created a new landscape plan that expands the park’s walkways and adds more places to sit.
© Iwan Baan
Richard Gilder Center’s Design Concept
The curving façade of the Gilder Center, which is coated in the same Milford pink granite as the Central Park West entryway, provides a visual connection between the two sides of the campus. The masonry on the 77th Street side of the Museum has a finely patterned, coursing surface, and its design is reminiscent of geological stacking due to the diagonal arrangement of the stone slabs. © Iwan Baan
The Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium, spanning the entire width of the Gilder Center, is the first thing visitors see when they step inside. Inspiration for the structure’s architecture came from how wind and water create intriguing landscapes to discover and how hot water sculpts shapes into chunks of ice.
© Iwan Baan
The Griffin Atrium serves as the Gilder Center’s main entryway; its textured walls, vibra...