rainforest all under one roof.”
Do not miss the dazzling new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. It is more than a museum. This new complex replaced the crumbling 80-year old facility containing the Steinhart Aquarium, African Hall and Morrison Planetarium.
Designed by Italian Renzo Piano, it is touted as possibly the “greenest” building in the world. The frame is constructed of recycled steel and is insulated with blue jean remnants from the cutting room floor of factories.
A “living roof” in the shape of a rounded, plant covered
California hill is dotted with circular skylights allowing natural light to illuminate the four story Rain Forests of the World exhibit below.
Piano designed the Pompidou Center in Paris, winning the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The entire complex design reflects themes of biodiversity, nature and naturalistic, fluid curves and circles. It was completed at a final cost of about $100 million, nearly three times the original estimate.
The Foucault Pendulum is back and true to the favorites of the old attraction, such as the alligator pond, visitors will find a realistic alligator swamp (with albino alligator), as well as a penguin exhibit.
Steinhart Aquarium
Designed by Tom Hennes of Thinc Design, the new Steinhart Aquarium contains twice as much water (212,000 gallons), twice as many species (900) and 25 percent more exhibits as the original. Hennes said he wanted the public to interact with sea life in totally new ways and he did that by designing the deepest coral reef tank in the world (25- foot Philippine Coral Reef) and a high-tech Water Planet exhibit.
Every hour the lights dim for the film. “Water is Life,” which explains the impacts of pollution and global warming on sea life.
Morrison Planetarium
A state of the art digital projection system surrounds up to 300 visitors with real-time data from NASA in side of a 90-foot diameter dome, which is tilted at a 30 degree angle, allowing visitors to feel more like they are amidst the stars. The 75-foot diameter screen matches the Griffith observatory, as the largest planetarium screen in
North America.
Kimball Natural History
Museum and More
Look for the African Hall, Early Explorers Cove, Science in Action, Amazonian Flooded Rainforest, Discovery Tide Pool, Islands of Evolution, the Academy Gardens, Naturalist Center and more.
The California Academy of Sciences is open 9:30am to 5pm. Admission is $24.95 for adults, $19.95 for ages 12-17 and for seniors, $14.95 for students age 4 to 11 and free for children under age 3. There is a free Wednesday once a month, but only for San Francisco residents of specific neighborhoods. The address is 55 Music Concourse Drive in Golden Gate Park. For more information visit www.calacademy.org or call 415-379-8000.
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