American Museum of Natural History $340m Insectarium (opening 2020)

[Giant Panda]

The AMNH is planning a $340m Insectarium, which will include live exhibits and is set to open in 2020. I'm surprised it hasn't been posted here before.

http://nypost.com/2017/01/11/american-museum-of-natural-history-to-get-an-insectarium/

 

[snowleopard]

Thanks for the link! This addition will turn the AMNH into a proper "zoo", as a full-scale Insectarium surely meets the definition of a "zoo" by the loose standards of many ZooChatters.

 

[FunkyGibbon]

If I'm reading the article correctly, the Insectarium is only a part of the Gilder Centre, and the $340M is the total budget. I think the mock-up pictures look terrible to be honest; I'm really not sure smooth white minimalist curves have anything to do with insects.

 

[Giant Panda]

If I'm reading the article correctly, the Insectarium is only a part of the Gilder Centre, and the $340M is the total budget. I think the mock-up pictures look terrible to be honest; I'm really not sure smooth white minimalist curves really have anything to do with insects.

Yes, you're quite right. The cost is for the entirety of the "Gilder Center":

An Insectarium on the first floor will introduce visitors to some of the most abundant and diverse animals in the world through specimens from the Museum’s collections alongside live insects, scientific tools, and digital displays. And above the Insectarium, visitors will be able to encounter live butterflies from around the world in the Butterfly Vivarium, one of the Museum’s most popular seasonal exhibits, now a year-round living exhibition.

A multi-story, glass-walled Collections Core will house 3.9 million specimens and artifacts from the Museum’s incomparable collections, while the immersive Invisible Worlds Theater will help visitors visualize data and concepts that don’t lend themselves to traditional exhibition—nothing will be too fast, too slow, too small, or too deep in time to be explored in this new space.

In addition, the Gilder Center project will include next-generation classrooms for different age groups in dedicated learning zones. These will include classrooms in a Family Learning Zone, a Middle School Learning Zone that will invite in New York City schools without laboratory facilities to attend “research field trips," a High School Learning Zone, and a Teacher Professional Development Zone.

Source: Project News

There's more about the development here: Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation

 

[Andrew_NZP]

American Museum of Natural History files plans for five-story expansion

 

[nczoofan]

The museums expansion will be opening next winter. It'll include a variety of new spaces, including 2 live animals galleries.

• the 5,000-square-foot Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family Insectarium, the first Museum gallery in more than 50 years dedicated to the most diverse – and a critically important – group of animals on Earth
• the new year-round, 3,000-square-foot Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium, a permanent exhibition where visitors can mingle with free-flying butterflies, a group that are one of nature’s vital environmental barometers

"With exhibition design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates — in collaboration with the museum’s exhibition department — the building addition includes a 5,000-square-foot Insectarium that will feature live and digital displays; a monumental beehive; and a gallery surrounding visitors with the sounds of Central Park insects.

There is also a year-round, 3,000-square-foot vivarium that will have free-flying butterflies and illustrated cards identifying each species in flight that are updated daily."

https://www.amnh.org/about/press-center/gilder-center-exhibitions-collections-core-theater

Other details were included in the NY Times article on the expansion.

With exhibition design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates — in collaboration with the museum’s exhibition department — the building addition includes a 5,000-square-foot Insectarium that will feature live and digital displays; a monumental beehive; and a gallery surrounding visitors with the sounds of Central Park insects.

There is also a year-round, 3,000-square-foot vivarium that will have free-flying butterflies and illustrated cards identifying each species in flight that are updated daily.

Museum of Natural History’s New Science Center Takes Shape