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20 T he February 17 unveiling of the 230,000-square-foot Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at Manhattan's century-old American Museum of Natural History is easily the architectural highpoint of the new decade. It not only heralds a singular addition to NYC's built environment but puts forth a museum structure destined to become as iconic as Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim. The latter embodies America's bold and idiosyncratic Organic School of Architecture; the Gilder, on New York's Upper West Side, is mined from the same ethos, sited across Central Park from Fifth Avenue's Guggenheim. The $431 million Gilder is a remarkable calling card for its Chicago-founded firm, led by Studio Gang's MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang, FAIA. Its earth-centric vocabulary of swirls and whorls of shotcrete brings to mind a structure honed from rock by wind and sand, inhabited by our cliff-dwelling ancestors millennia ago. On April 22, Studio Gang's acumen is again in the limelight — this time in the unlikely culture capital of Little Rock, Arkansas, with the opening of the jaunty 133,000-square-foot addition to the Deco-era Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, which has been revitalized through a $155 million capital campaign. Once again, an innovative use of concrete comes into play. The roofline appears to billow, while the expansive glass façade, supported by V-shaped concrete pillars, introduces geometric notes that harken back to temples of modernism while still being of our time. amnh.org, arkmfa.org. By Catherine D. Anspon Northern Exposure + Southern Comfort Studio Gang's Architectural Doubleheader Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, American Museum of Natural History, New York Studio Gang's new addition to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts unveils April 22, 2023. Studio Gang's Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History, Manhattan, opens February 17, 2023. Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Little Rock FROM TOP LEFT: TIMOTHY SCHENCK / © AMNH. TIMOTHY HURSLEY, COURTESY AMFA. COURTESY STUDIO GANG AND SCAPE. NEOSCAPE, INC. / © AMNH.