Anyone been to the California Academy of Sciences lately?

[Xithras]

So, I was looking for something to do with the kids yesterday, and we decided to take the 90 minute trip over to SF to visit the new California Academy of Sciences. I've been going there as long as I can remember, but "economy" issues over the last couple of years have kept me from visiting the new Academy since the rebuild. I've been looking forward to seeing the new Academy for a while, and based on the photos, I was prepared to be wowed.

I wasn't.

I mean, when you walk in, the place looks impressive. The open and airy glass and concrete architecture looks modern and beautiful, and the glass rainforest sphere is jawdropping, but once you get past that, you suddenly realize how SMALL and cheap the whole place feels. Exhibits that would have once been placed in halls now simply occupy divider frames on a concrete floor. The whole place has a "cram the exhibits into the empty spaces" feel. A tour of the entire facility, which once took the better part of the day, can now be accomplished in under two hours...and that includes watching the planetarium show.

And that planetarium! Once I heard "worlds largest all-digital planetarium", there was no chance that I was going to visit the Academy without seeing it. When I walked in and saw the gracefully lit overhead screen, I knew this was going to be great. I walked out wondering "what were they thinking??!?" The digital projecters weren't up to the task, so galaxies were washed out and highly pixelated like an over-zoomed digital photo. The color contrast was murky, so it was often hard to make out exactly what they were showing. The projector refresh rates were terrible, so motion across the screen was often stuttering. And, to make everything worse, they put the brightest emergency "EXIT" lights they could find in four corners of the room, which cast a pale green light over the entire screen and turned the inky black sky into an odd greenish gray. Didn't anyone actually TEST this?

All in all, I actually DID like the museum, but it wasn't worth anywhere near the $125 that it cost to get my wife, kids, and foster child into the building. I walked out thinking that the renovation had transformed one of the greatest science museums on the west coast into "just another municipal museum", suitable for schoolbus trips and day trips for San Franciscans, but that's about it. I walked out thinking that, now that I'd seen it, I probably wouldn't be back. That's tragic, since I'd been to the old Academy a dozen times and never got tired of seeing it.

The old Academy was designed to spark an interest in science in our youth. It was designed to pull them in, and wow them with science, and ignite their curiosity in the world around them. The new one? It's just a handful of dry exhibits stuck into a big concrete room with the build-quality of your average warehouse store. The designers, it seems, got so caught up with the idea of putting together a "modern, green building" that they forgot that it's the items INSIDE the building that are really important.

I really thought it was just me, and I kept my opinions to myself, but when we got back into the car both my 16 year old and my 13 year old started talking about how much "better" the old one was. Even worse, my 6 year old said to me, "Daddy, can we go to the zoo next time? That was boring." At 6 the old Academy NEVER bored me.

Tragic.

[Taverner]

1. I dunno, I grew up on the old place

But was definitely wowed by the new place - especially the rooftop

[Xithras]

2. Sure, the roof is neat.

But it was an exemplification of my biggest complaint about the place. They spent so much time and energy focusing on building a green, earth-friendly, low-impact structure, that they apparently overlooked the fact that few people come to a museum to look at the BUILDING.

The problem, I think, is that the fun is gone. There's no more earthquake room. No more Gary Larson exhibit to make you laugh. No more halls of dinosaurs to drop a childs jaw in wonder. No March of Ages hall to show the kids how life evolved on our planet (heck the entire human evolution exhibit consists of a couple skeletons screwed to a wall with a couple of plaques).

I'm far to the left of most of DU when it comes to environmental issues, but I think that the designers of the new museum made a serious mistake when they laid it out. The new museum isn't so much about science, as it is about environmental advocacy. Instead of inspiring an interest in the sciences, it seems more interested in generating the next generation of architects and environmental protesters. That's a fine goal, but it's not what I take my kids to a science museum for.

By the way, did you happen to notice that they were so concerned about the buildings, that they didn't even bother to update a number of the exhibits? I was a bit suprised to see that the 3D topo map of the Bay Area, long a feature of the old museum and placed in the 1970's, was relocated back into the new museum. It shows San Jose as a small town surrounded by farms and orchards still. Yep, that's some up-to-date "science" there!

[mackerel]

3. I liked it alright but the only thing that wowed me were the

prices (I went in Jan. '09) I have a greater and deeper love for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

[CreekDog]

5. i enjoyed the aviary

i miss the penguins, but if the place was terrific otherwise, i wouldn't have.

[Mz Pip]

11. I had a similar reaction.

I used to take my kids to the old Academy of Sciences a lot. I remember taking the kids out of school to go to there when Voyager did the Neptune flyby and the pictures were transmitted there. I miss the space stuff in the new one.

The old one seemed bigger. Now there are 3 restaurants in the place. No more laser shows, either. THe IMAX theater is included in the price of the admission but usually you have to wait a couple of hours to see the show.

I bought a membershhip right when it opened and went a couple of times with various family members but I doubt I will renew it.

[CreekDog]

4. I was not impressed

The place was not flawed, but it tried to be everything and was just meh in most areas.

Whereas other places focusing on nature that focused on a theme or particular expertise did so much more effectively:

1) Monterey Bay Aquarium showcases the local environment like nobody else does (THEME!)

2) Vancouver aquarium mostly specializes in local species or at least puts the most effort into that

3) The Portland Zoo has a large section focused on the Pacific Northwest Ecosystem and it's very interesting and unique for that

And it cost nearly $20. Go to the DeYoung next time.

[Adsos Letter]

6. My daughter and I went there for a day trip a couple of weeks ago

before she went back south for college. The Rainforest exhibit was closed for the day, and we didn't feel like coughing up $29.00 apiece without being able to see it. Went to the DeYoung, instead.

The new DeYoung is magnificent.

[sakabatou]

7. God I haven't been there in YEARS

[Brother Buzz]

8. Did they keep Ansel Adams' skyline silhouette in the planetarium?

I loved that place as a kid and I worked construction there through the seventies and eighties. I befriended the man that designed and made the moons of Jupiter projector (some pretty heady math and machining). The big decision at that time, and when I built the twin laser projection booths for the light show, was whether or not to keep the famous Adams silhouette. They did.

I was sad to see CAS torn down but it needed to be razed because the structure was flawed to the core; the mortar holding the terracotta blocks together was made with beach sand, and one could just pull blocks out by hand (easy work installing pass through doors in the back rooms). Rebar was not used in the internal 14 foot high non-bearing demising walls, something you don't want to be near during and earthquake. The concrete floors were weak, too, we could never, ever, use rotary hammers.

"Economy" and health issues have prevented me from visiting, but it is on my bucket list.

[Xithras]

9. No, they got rid of it.

The new planetarium is very curvy with lots of reflected lights. As my wife commented, "It looks like the deck of the Enterprise." More importantly, the dome is now tilted at a 45 degree angle and is more like a big Imax movie screen, instead of the true-dome that existed in the old planetarium.

It's all very sleek, modern, and sterile.

[XemaSab]

10. I'm sorry to hear that

I have a fondness for natural history museums.

Monterey, Santa Barbara, and North Carolina are my three favorites of all times, but even the old Rotary Science Center at Lake Merritt has its charms. :)