Magzoid Magazine - Luxury Magazine in the Creative Space | October 2021

ART | NEWS
Read more at www.magzoid.com
World's largest astronomy
museum opens in China
The Shanghai Astronomy
Museum, the world's
largest astronomy
museum, has opened
in China. The museum
is designed by the U.S. firm
Ennead Architects and boasts
an observatory, a planetarium,
and a 78-foot-tall solar telescope.
the building span over an area of
420000 square feet and yet the
visitors won't find any straight lines
or right angles in it.
From certain angles on the
ground, the venue resembles
something like a deconstructed
spaceship. The entrance opens
into a broad oculus that doubles
as a sundial, projecting shapes of
natural light across the ground to
indicate the time and season.
Pathways then lead viewers
across the campus to a
gigantic suspended sphere: the
planetarium. Finally, museumgoers
are brought to the top of the
building, where an inverted glass
dome opens up to the night sky.
The museum looks more like
a swirling celestial vortex from
above. It was inspired by the
organic geometry of the universe
and the “three-body problem,” an
unsolved mathematical mystery
about how to determine the orbital
paths of planets and other galactic
bodies in relation to one another.
The oculus, sphere, and inverted
dome take on new symbolic
relevance from a bird’s eye view,
Finally, museumgoers
are brought
to the top of the
building, where an
inverted glass dome
opens up to the
night sky.
too: they represent the sun, moon,
and stars, respectively.
-news@magzoid.com
62
October 2021
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