California Academy of Sciences, Natural history museum and research center in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, United States.
The California Academy of Sciences is a natural history museum and research center in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, United States, that brings together several scientific facilities. Under a curved roof sit a planetarium, an aquarium, natural history exhibition halls, and a multistory rainforest inside a glass dome.
The institution began in 1853 as one of the first scientific societies on the West Coast and moved to Golden Gate Park in 1916. After earthquake damage, the building was entirely rebuilt in 2008 and fitted with a planted roof.
The institution takes its name from California's early scientific community and continues to link research with public education. Visitors today can watch scientists working in glass-walled laboratories, where they sort specimens and document species.
The complex opens in the morning on most days and closes in the afternoon, with shorter hours on Sunday. Wheelchair-accessible paths run through all areas, and audio guides are available at the ticket desk.
The living roof covers about 100,000 square feet (about 9,300 square meters) and supports native plants that attract bees and birds. This layer of soil and vegetation helps keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter.
Location: San Francisco
Inception: 1853
Official opening: 1853
Industry: higher education
Address: 55 Music Concourse Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118
Opening Hours: Monday-Saturday 09:30-17:00; Sunday 11:00-17:00
Phone: +14153798000
Website: https://calacademy.org
GPS coordinates: 37.77000,-122.46639
Latest update: December 4, 2025 23:43
Renzo Piano, born in Genoa in 1937, has developed an architectural language over five decades that combines technical precision with human scale. His buildings are characterized by transparent facades, visible structural elements, and the integration of natural light. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, completed in 1977 with Richard Rogers, displays building services on the exterior. The Whitney Museum in New York uses industrial materials within a residential neighborhood. The Shard in London reaches 309 meters with a glass facade that reflects daylight. His cultural buildings connect function with urban context. The Fondation Beyeler in Riehen near Basel sits within a park with glass walls between interior and exterior spaces. The Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome comprises three concert halls with different acoustics. Kansai Airport in Osaka stands on an artificial island with a 1.7-kilometer terminal. Piano received the Pritzker Prize in 1998 for his work.
Silicon Valley gathers the headquarters of big tech companies like Meta, Apple, Google, and Oracle. Their campuses are modern, with glass towers and low buildings surrounded by gardens. Apple Park forms a ring of glass amid the hills of Cupertino, while Oracle's blue cylindrical towers remind visitors of their database roots. Google has several areas in Mountain View with colorful buildings and large sculptures of Android mascots. Some garages show where these companies started. The one where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded HP in 1939 in Palo Alto now has a plaque up. In Los Altos, the family garage where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computers in 1976 is a place that curious visitors like to see. Stanford University, founded in the late 1800s, covers a large area south of San Francisco. Its labs and research programs still train engineers and entrepreneurs. Museums like the Intel museum tell the story of microprocessors from the 1960s onward.
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