On April 17, the Exploratorium reopened at its new location on Pier 15 in the heart of the revitalized San Francisco waterfront, radically improving access to visitors from all over the world and dramatically enhancing the size and scope of the museum.
The popular Recollections exhibit is a colorful, dazzling projection which lets visitors create vivid, full-size, time-delayed images of themselves. Visitors move about in dance-like motion to create dozens of time lapse and computer generated personal silhouettes. Combining computer technology, a color camera, a large screen projector and a special retro-reflective screen, artist Ed Tannenbaum has created an environment that explores time and motion in beautiful colors.
Published: May, 2013
On April 17, the Exploratorium reopened at its new location on Pier 15 in the heart of the revitalized San Francisco waterfront, radically improving access to visitors from all over the world and dramatically enhancing the size and scope of the museum.
With three times more space overall than its previous home at the Palace of Fine Arts, the new Exploratorium will engage the curiosity and creativity of visitors of any age as they explore 150 brand-new exhibits amongst more than 600 that will be on view. For the first time, the Exploratorium expands its investigations into the Bay, City, and outdoor landscape.
The Exploratorium, founded in 1969 by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer, is regarded as the world’s foremost interactive science museum, designed to make natural phenomena and the world around us both exciting and understandable. A pioneer in exhibit design and global leader in informal learning, the Exploratorium has been described as a mad scientist’s penny arcade, a scientific funhouse and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one. Hundreds of hands-on exhibits inspire the curiosity and creativity of visitors of all ages.
As the global leader in informal learning—an approach that encourages learning outside the classroom—and the world’s most experimental museum, the Exploratorium will make use of the remarkable new space to push the boundaries once again. For the first time in 44 years, the signature Exploratorium exhibits will be featured outdoors, taking advantage of the City and Bay to encourage visitors to observe and engage in their environments like never before.
The indoor and outdoor spaces are divided into six main galleries: Human Behavior, Seeing Listening, Living Systems, Tinkering Studio, Observing the Landscape and the Outdoor Gallery.
Visitors will be able to experience their own storm by adjusting the frequency, size and velocity of raindrops (umbrella highly recommended), step into the mobile Camera Obscura and see an upside-down world before them, and interact in real-time with invisible life—teeny-tiny plankton that produce almost half the oxygen we breathe. The site will feature the Bay Observatory, an all-glass building. The Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery and Terrace, on the second level, is for viewing the waterfront and the City, designed to allow visitors to explore the science of the Bay, the landscape, and the human impacts that have shaped the Bay Area. The new Exploratorium will also offer 1.5 acres of free public space—a part of the Outdoor Gallery, for visitors to enjoy the views and play with participatory exhibits tied to the surrounding environment.
The new facility will also feature the Seaglass restaurant, a 200-seat waterfront restaurant located at the end of Pier 15 offering stunning views of the Bay and the Bay Bridge. The menu caters to a wide range of palates, pairing local seafood with innovative cuisine. Diners will be able to experience unique exhibits within the restaurant, including the innovative Icy Bodies, an artwork by Exploratorium artist Shawn Lani in which fragments of dry ice spin like comets across a sheet of water below the glass-topped bar. While catering primarily to museum guests, the public is also able to access the restaurant from an exterior entrance.
The 330,000 square-foot indoor/outdoor project is also designed and constructed with the goal of becoming the largest net-zero energy museum in the United States, if not the world. True to the spirit of the Exploratorium and the nature of net-zero, achieving such an ambitious degree of energy-efficiency will require monitoring and tinkering over time. The entire undertaking will be a real-time educational exhibit, with live energy use and photovoltaic production data on public display.
Along with the move, the Exploratorium will expand its programming and remain open late two nights a week. Wednesday it is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Wednesday evenings will feature cinema screenings for local, adult audiences that incorporate live performances, demonstrations, and discussions on the moving image.
And for those who want to experience this exuberant learning laboratory amongst other adults, the Exploratorium will be open exclusively to the 18 and older crowd on Thursday evenings for After Dark, from 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday evenings will host a rotating schedule of programs ranging from intimate interviews to exuberant first Thursday explorations of science and culture. Cash bars will operate both Wednesday and Thursday nights.
The opening of the new Exploratorium was one of the most highly anticipated events of the year. With the move to the new site, the world-renowned Exploratorium will attract even more visitors of all ages to play, observe and discover while soaking in the beauty of the Bay and cityscape. But as always, exhibits will retain the familiar homemade, authentic quality for which the Exploratorium is famous.
Admission is $25 for adults, with lower rates for Bay Area residents, youth, seniors, students, teachers and the disabled. In order to minimize lines and avoid overcrowding, all tickets through September 2013 will feature timed entry, so advance ticket purchases are strongly recommended through their website at www.exploratorium.edu.
All exhibit photos by Amy Snyder © Exploratorium, All rights reserved
A topographic relief map of the San Francisco Bay Area becomes a projection surface for the display of visual data, offering different perspectives on the region. Presentations will include: a 40-year history of earthquakes; an animation of the fluctuating salinity of bay water in response to tides and rainfall; 24-hour fog patterns for winter and summer; and population distribution according to age and ethnicity.
The Icy Bodies exhibit features thin shavings of dry ice injected onto the surface of a shallow pool of water, where they careen around like comets while side-lighting highlights the detailed structure of the out-gassing jets.
