The Cushing Center houses the Dr. Harvey Cushing Collection at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Cushing, an eminent neurosurgeon practicing in the 1920-30’s, amassed a large collection of brain specimens and chronicled the changing conditions of his patients with his own photographs, drawings, and journal entries. Whereas the specimens were once stored in different locations on the medical school campus, the Center provides a cohesive setting for storage, study, and display. Its exhibition and work spaces facilitate both group seminars and individual research projects where scholars have access to the sensitive archival materials.

The feeling of the space will be one of informational density where every surface is a display case revealing a part of the Cushing story, behind which are multiple layers of stored information, ready to be discovered or ‘mined’ by opening doors, drawers, or other storage apparatus. Part of the excitement of the place is the element of search and discovery as layers of information emerge and unfold. The desired effect is for a sense of both the intimate and the immense where the individual artifact can be viewed up close and intimately, but is, at the same time, connected coherently to a much larger body of related sources that can be found by further explorations of the collection. The effect in this sense, is for a cabinet that has no end, but extends on seemingly infinitely, inviting exploration.