California ScienCenter

California ScienCenter review

A fusion of two longstanding prior facilities, the California ScienCenter opened in 1998 in a bright, airy building directly in front of the Rose Garden in Exposition Park. The main building is split into two loosely themed wings: Creative World, which focuses on technology (and has a little catching up to do), and World of Life, an engaging if sometimes slightly queasy selection of exhibits on all manner of living things.

The top floor also features a Science Court, a fairly disparate jumble of interactive playthings, and the ever-popular High-Wire Bicycle, which allows the brave and the trusting to ride a bike along a one-inch wire some 43 feet above the ground in order to demonstrate the power of gravity. Next door, in a hulking, Frank Gehry-designed building, the Air & Space Exhibits include a replica of a Wright Brothers glider, a decommissioned police helicopter, and Explorer 1, the first American spacecraft to orbit the earth.

A supplementary permanent exhibit, World of Ecology, is scheduled to open in 2010, with Worlds Beyond due to follow at a currently unspecified date in the future. In the meantime, further entertainment is provided by a roster of temporary exhibits (CSI: The Experience will be here during 2009) and an IMAX cinema, screening the usual array of dazzling, quasi-educative, nature-slanted films. Entrance to the museum's permanent exhibits is free, which might explain why the main attraction on the ground floor is an enormous shop.