Liberty Museum
Summary
A proposal for a renovation of the visitor center at the Statue of Liberty. The existing visitor center is a hodgepodge of decades old renovations of the historic fort, temporary outdoor security tents, and buildings spread over the island.
Program
- Outdoor pre-security waiting area
- Indoor statue viewing platform waiting area
- Gallery spaces
- Gift shop
- Cafe
- Offices
Goals
- Maintain visual relationship to an iconic structure
- Make use of unique structural and spatial opportunities of the site
- Improve experience of visting Liberty Island, especially in peak tourist season
Collaborators
Renderings
Bird’s Eye
The site is visible from many high rises in lower Manhattan and New Jersey as well as from the flight paths of aircraft en route to JFK, Newark, and La Guardia airports. From above, the wrinkled skin creates a visual relationship between the proposal and the iconic robes of the Statue of Liberty.
The folding is more than aesthetic, on the roof, the angles of the folds are kept within a range that enables them to self-shade from the intense southern sun to reduce cooling loads in the summer while still allowing daylight from northern exposure and reducing lighting loads.
Worm’s Eye
The worm’s eye perspective from underneath the cantilever shows the outdoor waiting area for lines that form before the security checkpoint outside the entrance hall. Here, the folded skin becomes the reflective backing that reflects infrared radiation from the return side of the hydronic loop to cool the area in the hot, humid summer months.
The rear wall of the primary gallery is faceted glass curtain wall that turns the landscape of the island into a life-size abstract painting.
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Plans
Ground Level
The main entrance is moved underneath the cantilevered gallery spaces. The entrance hall contains reception, restrooms, the ramps to the various gallery levels, a gift shop and cafe to the right, with mechanical space hidden to the left.
A new concrete pour reinforces the existing wall of the historic fort and acts as pivot point which places the various columns throughout the hall into tension as they resist the moment generated by the cantilever. This allows the columns to become longer and more slender than if they were in compression.
Gallery Level
The attenuated ramps that create the path from the entrance hall, around the statue base, and proceed to the main gallery in the cantilever encourage a relaxed walk to the entrance to the statue base which leads up to the viewing platform. This, ideally, makes the inevitable queuing for the crown an enjoyable experience rather than a mad dash to simply wait between crowd barriers.
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Sections
Underneath the cantilever, the line for the entrance and security has plenty of space to snake around while being protected from the sun and using the return side of the hydronic heating/cooling system to partially condition the waiting area. The reflective skin is formed from polished and folded sheets of aluminum to fully reflect the infrared radiation from the source plumbing.
The four ramps of the main circulation route act both as large, open gallery spaces and use sectional separation to connect the disparate elevations of the existing site.
Within the entrance hall, the thin, tensile column frame acts as series of screens that direct ambulatory paths without enforcing them. The four ramps can be seen traversing down to the statue entrance in the center, returning to the entrance hall on the left, and out to the lower deck in the middle.
Construction & Systems
Exploded Isometric
Though the wrinkled skin is complex, each strip can be polished while flat to achieve the necessary reflectivity for the exterior radiant system, then CNC cut from metal sheet stock, and hydraulically bent into shape before being attached to the profile members that enforce the shape.
Ten Pratt-type trusses are run in parallel to form the cantilevered space frame of the main gallery. The base of the statue is a massive ~1 million kilogram concrete block to which the truss chords are anchored. In the entrance hall, the vertical members extend past the bottom chord of the truss to become the tensile columns. In the gallery space, the trusses are used as framing members for drywall on which to hang exhibition pieces.
The primary radiant heating loops run parallel to the direction of the trusses while their return plumbing exits the facade system to partially condition the outdoor space under the cantilever.
