The two storey hall lit like the sea floor, the blue whale hanging over everything, the dioramas glowing in the walls, the works between the windows of the deep.
The Hall of Ocean Life opened at the American Museum of Natural History in 1933. The 94 foot fiberglass blue whale model was hung from the ceiling in 1969, and the hall was renovated and renamed for the Milstein family in 2003. Dioramas of sea life line the walls on two levels beneath the whale.
Source · American Museum of Natural History ↗
The ninety four foot whale suspended from the ceiling, the blue light and the ocean floor mural, the upper and lower tiers of dioramas set into the walls, the balcony, the great hall doorway with its columns. Mood: deep blue afternoon. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.