What makes the visitor center work so well as a piece of architecture is the way it expresses in glass, steel, and earth the natural and man-made forces shaping the site.
Its slithering form and sinuous breezeway respond to the paths, trees, and berm that had long been there.
“We tried to bring into view things that had been invisible in the site,” explains Weiss.
So the circulation through the building offers views back to the city, out to Cherry Walk, and up to the ginkgo allée on the top of the berm—all of which were always there but probably weren't previously noticed by visitors as they walked through this part of the garden.