American Museum of Natural History

by LANDMARK WEST!

Today, one enters what is the windowless Northwest Coast Hall of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) by crossing the Ellen V. Futter “Futter Gallery” (renamed 2023),^[1] to the south or via a series of linked corridors to the north. When the museum first opened on its current site on December 22, 1877, following a dedication by the 19th US President Rutherford B. Hayes, this wing was day-lit by windows along either side, and it was the museum in its entirety.

Standing alone in the expanse of a rutted, swampy, hilly Manhattan Square, the southern arm of an internal Greek cross, this wing was the first portion to be realized in accordance with a master plan developed by architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould for the site. This was not, however, the first instance of the museum itself. Clad in stone and red brick, the Victorian Gothic-style structure attempted to set the tone for the rest of the ensemble but was soon challenged. Buried behind Cady, Berg & See’s Romanesque Revival 77th Street frontage, today popularly known as “the Castle,” an outward face of what the whole complex would now look like emerged. It was defined by rounded corner towers; wings were added from 1891, and then again 1894-1900, giving the museum its southern exposure.

Composed of “five stories of smooth and rock-faced Vermont pink granite with steep graceful stairways rising from the street to an open platform at the first floor level”^[2] it is hard to imagine that this graceful composition would fall out of style within a few decades Eliel Saarinen would be hired to develop schemes for the Museum to consider for a more modern refacement.

Buried behind Cady, Berg & See’s Romanesque Revival 77th Street frontage, today popularly known as “the Castle,” an outward face of what the whole complex would now look like emerged.

As research expeditions continued, the collection ballooned, which put continual restraints on the growing facility. A 1906 expansion turned the corner of West 77th Street northward along the Columbus Avenue side in the same vocabulary as the southern edge. Following this effort, however, a number of changes were in store. Although publicly the administration praised Cady Berg and See there were frustrations with their material finishing, and adherence to cost and schedules. To further inflame feelings, the finished construction did not have adequate services to run it. The largely unknown Charles Volz was tasked with the creation of a combined heating and lighting plant to service the needs of the completed museum portions replacing the long-standing architects who redefined the look of the Museum. Following this utility structure and a series of internal tweaks to the Museum, Volz made recommendations for how the Museum best fill the site, but sadly director Morris K. Jesup who led the institution as its president for more than 25 years died. With his replacement and a new administration, even more change was in store.

The predecessor president, Henry Fairfield Osborn oversaw the next quarter century of the Museum’s leadership, and “during his tenure, the American Museum became the nation’s preeminent natural history museum and one of the most prestigious internationally…collections expiated at an extraordinary rate, due in large measure to the scientific expeditions sponsored by the museum around the globe.”^[3] Benefiting from this period of growth was the firm of Trowbridge and Livingston who were engaged, and they began northward construction on the Central Park West elevation. Perhaps nodding to the 1903-08/1937-38 limestone New-York Historical Society due south, Trowbridge and Livingston employed an adapted classical style and used gray granite as a primary material. Not all of their efforts were for show—further expansions occupied what were intended as open courtyards and also reflect not only a shifting attitude toward exhibitry, but a pragmatic stance necessitated by the quickly expanding collection. Most optimistically, their public facing wings offer a prelude to the monumental main entrance named for Theodore Roosevelt and designed in a true Classical Style by architect John Russell Pope. Centered on a Triumphal Arch, the wing anchored by Memorial Hall would itself be designated as an interior landmark in 1975.

With permission granted to deviate from the master plan, Trowbridge and Livingston otherwise further met the institution’s needs with their plans for the Hayden Planetarium. This would be the last major addition until the turn of the millennium when the Polshek Partnership would replace the fading attraction with an awe-inspiring wing worthy of everyone’s attention: The Rose Center for Earth and Space. Coupled with the reimagining were other functional elements—parking, a roof garden, and another secondary entrance, itself replaced in 2023 with Studio Gang’s Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation. A shotcrete structure, which added new gallery and support spaces for the Museum, improved circulation to mitigate visitor dead-ends. A corrective expansion, “the building also houses new classrooms, a “collections core” that puts artifacts used by scientists on display, a butterfly vivarium, and a research library.”^[4]

Collectively, the piecemeal campus reflects changing tastes, styles, and priorities for an institution founded in 1869 on equal parts pride in New York and jealousy of Europe. Whereas the founders saw the promise of New York City as a cosmopolitan hub, civically-minded individuals sought cultural institutions of comparable stature to the best of their European counterparts, today’s visitors can simply delight in world-renowned dioramas, walk under a giant blue whale, and marvel at any number of gems and geodes or reassembled dinosaur skeletons. None of this would be possible without the forethought of American lawyer Andrew Haskell Green (October 6, 1820-November 13, 1903), who helped develop Central Park and served as comptroller for the undertaking, and advocated for a number of civic improvements.

Collectively, the piecemeal campus reflects changing tastes, styles, and priorities for an institution…

While his earlier plan to build a Paleozoic Museum was canceled, his efforts within the ever-expanding authority of the Central Park Commission won approval for what are today two of the City’s highest-regarded public-private institutions: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, arguably achieving those lofty cosmopolitan goals.

Realized in defiance of Tammany politics, the AMNH’s founding is that much more startling.

The idea of such a municipal cultural institution began a decade prior to the AMNH founding. In 1859, Andrew Haskell Green sought an observatory along with museums for both art and natural history. It would take another gentleman, Albert S. Bickmore to realize key components of this vision. Bickmore was a graduate of Harvard, where he studied under the Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz, who himself had created Havard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (specimen from which can be viewed at the Harvard Museum of Natural History today).^[5]

Their first version began as an idea, based on Protestant ethos, to help the lower classes. Opened to the public in the old Arsenal building in Central Park,”^[6] it has grown and grown but has yet to physically fill the grand vision of its founders, for “had the museum been built in its entirety at that time, it would have been the largest structure in North America and would have been larger than the Louvre in Paris or London’s British Museum.”^[7]

We are grateful to them both and all those who worked with them to make the 156-year-old institution the world-class destination it is today.

[1] Also known as the  77th Street Lobby/Haida Canoe (by 2000), aka 77th Street Foyer (by 1962-74), aka Polar Exploration (by 1953), aka Special Exhibits (by 1943), aka Memorial Hall (by 1939), aka South Pavilion (by 1936), aka Hall 104 (by 1904), and variously Grand Gallery.

[2] “The American Museum of Natural History” Designation Report LP-0282 via the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

[3] Dolkart, Andrew. Breaking New Ground: The Architecture of the American Museum of Natural History. The American Museum of Natural History. 2001. Unpublished Manuscript. P. 19.

[4] D’Aprile, Marianela “The Richard Gilder Center Opens at the American Museum of Natural History.” Metropolis Magazine, 4 May, 2023.

[5] Bickmore, Albert S. An autobiography, with a historical sketch of the founding and early development of the American Museum of Natural History. 1908. Accessed via AMNH Digital Library. LINK

[6] “The American Museum of Natural History” Designation Report LP-0282 via the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

[7] Dolkart, Andrew. Breaking New Ground: The Architecture of the American Museum of Natural History. The American Museum of Natural History. 2001. Unpublished Manuscript. P. 8.

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