THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
INTERNATIONAL PLANT SCIENCE CENTER

Bronx, New York

This 70,000-square-foot addition to the original Museum Building houses a new state-of-the-art Plant Studies Center, comprised of herbarium, library and study rooms. The new wing expands the original domed Beaux Arts structure built in 1902 and rationalizes circulation throughout. The new Janet and Arthur Ross Gallery and Lobby serves as the primary entry to the facility and as a lobby for the existing auditorium. The project also includes the restoration of the building’s central domed space and the renovation of the northern wing of the Museum Building’s top floor as the new LuEsther T. Mertz Library and Rare Book Room. The design of the new building is formally and materially integrated with the turn-of-the-century building, which is accomplished through the abstraction of the historic building’s classical organization and regulating systems. The herbarium section’s organizational strategy was directly informed by the modular shelving system.