Michael Kimmelman Photographs

Apr 25, 2023 | nytimes.com | Michael Kimmelman Photographs |Peter Fisher |Michael Kimmelman

When plans for it first surfaced, I wondered if the new Gilder Center at the Natural History museum might end up looking overcooked. From the outside it’s a white-pink granite cliff with yawning windows shaped a little like the openings to caves, nestling the museum’s wonderful Romanesque Revival addition from the turn of the last century. Past the front doors, that cliff face morphs. It becomes an atrium in the guise of a towering canyon, a city block deep.