Museum of Arts and Sciences, Arts and sciences museum in Macon, United States.
The Museum of Arts and Sciences is a community museum on Forsyth Road in Macon, Georgia, made up of several connected wings. Its four galleries hold changing exhibitions on fine art, science and the humanities, alongside the three-story Discovery House, the Mini-Zoo, the Mark Smith Planetarium southwest of the main entrance, and outdoor grounds with trails, a garden, a pavilion and an amphitheater.
The museum opened in 1956 in a single room of the Wesleyan Conservatory, offering a few activities for children. It moved in 1964 with a new gallery and workshop, and a planetarium wing followed in 1965. A 1980 addition supplied most of the current infrastructure, while the Discovery House, lobby and classrooms came in 2001.
The art gallery mixes permanent pieces with temporary shows that change every four to six months; past exhibitions included Fired by Genius: The Ceramics of Pablo Picasso, Sunlight and Shadow: American Impressionism, and The Art of Tiffany. Outside the Discovery House stands Gesturing Woman, a sculpture by Viola Frey.
The Mark Smith Planetarium, southwest of the main entrance, seats 118 people under a 12.2-metre dome and runs two shows daily, with topics changed every two months. The Mini-Zoo sits to the left of the Discovery House, and the Discovery House is entered past Viola Frey's sculpture Gesturing Woman. Outdoor grounds hold an amphitheatre, pavilion, raptor retreat, bat cave and walking trails.
The Mini-Zoo, left of the Discovery House, is built as a two-storey jungle habitat where monkeys, birds, snakes and an alligator are kept, and the animals also appear in auditorium shows led by the museum's caregivers. The Discovery House holds "Ziggy", a 40-million-year-old whale fossil, and a taxidermy adult polar bear.
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