Time travel on the terrace

By CHARLES ANDERSON
Anderson & Ray

The Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City is designed to link the historic, traditional appearance and function of the museum with the gleaming materials and modern design of the New Rose Center for Earth and Space, designed by the Polshek Partnership of New York. The project replaces the old Hayden Planetarium. The terrace is over an acre in size and sits atop a three-story parking garage with views out over Theodore Roosevelt Park.

The invitational design competition was won by the design team of Kathryn Gustafson, a Paris and Seattle-based landscape artist and the Seattle-based landscape architecture firm Anderson & Ray. Charles Anderson is the principal landscape architect for the project, Chris Overdorf is project manager, and associate designers include Shannon Nichol, Mark Tilbe and Inge Kaufman.

Graphic simulation at the Arthur Ross Terrace of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, American Museum of Natural History, New York City Courtesy of Anderson & Ray

Granite in subtly graduated shades, along with sloping panels of lawn, are being used to create these triangular shadows on the ground plane. Changes in level, low walls, trees, and plantings further define the terrace s walkways and seating areas.

The plan has five major components.

The Central Plaza: The darkest, central shadow, a wedge of blue-green granite, draws visitors to the center of the terrace with the playful glimmer of water jets and fiber optic lights. These dynamic elements are arranged in the well-known pattern of the Orion Constellation. Four meteor trails, subtly etched into the stone, create small rills of water that flow from the water jets to a reflection pool at the base of the planetarium glass cube. During special events, the entire central shadow panel will be flooded with a thin wash of flowing water, which originates near the existing museum building and flows toward the planetarium.

The Promenade: Pagoda trees will form a double row along the northern-most edge of the plaza. These arching, fine-textured trees will eventually form a tunnel of filtered light and fragrant seasonal bloom, leading visitors from the entry stairs to the Rose Center. The distinct rows of trees will also help define the terrace edge from the mixed forest of the park below. Along this double-row of Pagoda trees, visitors will find a series of stopping spots for viewing the landscape beyond the edge of the terrace. These alcoves with benches are designed to accommodate small school groups or tour parties for lessons and discussions.

Entry Stairs: As visitors ascend the steps from Theodore Roosevelt Park to the space-themed terrace, stairway planters offer subtle bits of inspiration: a collection of native Mountain Laurel is planned to include cultivars named for their star-shaped blooms, including star cluster, comet, shooting star, and galaxy. These are flanked by native shrubs of historical significance, such as inkberry and franklinia. Traditional perennials and groundcovers will respect the historic brick of the adjacent building and the traditionally planted park below.

Museum Entry Area: The rectangular upper terrace of stone is the central shadows western destination. It is separated from the rest of the plaza by a line of white, granite seating steps. On this terrace, a bosque of ginkgo trees will be planted. The ginkgo is a surviving species of a family of trees that originated during Earth's Carboniferous period, some 340 to 290 million years ago. As these trees mature into a shady grove, striking views will be had through the brightly colored fossil leaves to the futuristic Rose Center across the plaza. In the fall, the bright green leaves of the ginkgoes will transform into a glowing, clear solar yellow. Moveable cafe furnishings will provide flexible, social opportunities amongst the ginkgo.

The Mist Planting: In the spring, above the entrance to the Rose Centers parking garage on the northern edge of the terrace, the dramatic white bloom of densely planted native beach plum will create two lines of white mist. The mist will provide an cloudlike foundation for the Rose Center when viewed from the entrance to the parking garage below.

Ultimately the terrace, or Eclipse Garden, will serve the public as a respite urban oasis that is simple yet encompasses many meanings. Of these elements, the celestial relationships are grounded in earths natural history. The glass cube delicately houses a gigantic sphere that appears to hover in defiance of gravity and poses questions of time, scale and distance. As you follow along the shadow cast from the sphere over the granite plaza to the grove of Ginkgo, you are left to ponder the ancient history of that tree, its living presence representing one of the oldest living things on this planet, yet whose existence is only a minute fraction of the stellar evolutionary time scale.

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