Icebergs

James Corner Field Operations creates a new, one-of-a-kind destination this summer with Icebergs in the Museum's Great Hall. Representing a beautiful, underwater world of glacial ice fields, the immersive installation emphasizes current themes of landscape representation, geometry, and construction. Icebergs opens as part of the Museum’s annual Summer Block Party series.

The installation will beis built from re-usable construction materials, such as scaffolding and polycarbonate paneling, a material commonly used in building greenhouses. A “water line” suspended 20 feet high bisect sthe vertical space, allowing panoramic views from high above the ocean surface and down below among the towering bergs. The tallest “bergy bit,” at 56 feet, reaches above the waterline to the third story balcony of the Museum. Icebergs occupies a total area of 12,540 square feet. 

This summer visitors can ascend a viewing area inside the tallest berg, traverse an undersea bridge, relax among caves and grottos on the ocean floor, sample shaved-ice snacks, and participate in unique educational programming highlighting landscape architecture, design, and environmental topics.

"Icebergs invokes the surreal underwater-world of glacial ice fields,” said James Corner, founder and director of James Corner Field Operations. “Such a world is both beautiful and ominous given our current epoch of climate change, ice-melt, and rising seas. The installation creates an ambient field of texture, movement, and interaction, as in an unfolding landscape of multiples, distinct from a static, single object.”

James Corner Field Operations is an urban design, landscape architecture, and public-realm practice based in New York City and known for projects such as New York’s High Line and Santa Monica’s Tongva Park. The firm was commissioned by the National Building Museum to create the temporary summer exhibit following last year’s popular Beach installation, a playful structure that welcomed over 180,000 visitors during its two month run.

Exhibition overview from museum website