Science Center as cultural center

Recently the Science Center has been spectacularly opened - an institution with real culture, established and funded by such entities as Capital City of Warsaw, Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Ministry of National Education. The idea of the Center has grown out of real - both the scientific community and the public needs - as science has become not only fashionable, but also the value for a large part of society. The idea has appeared in 1997, when Science Picnic and Science Festival in Warsaw team of representatives received the prestigious Hugo Steinhaus Award, for outstanding achievements in science. To legacy these performances Prof. Magdalena Fikus and Prof. Łukasz Turski expressed the dream to arise something more permanent, a kind of "museum of modern science " or "exploratory".,Their dream has come truth seven years later.



In 2005 an international architectural competition for the design of Copernicus Science Centre was announced. First prize went to young and small studio RAr-2 Laboratory of Architecture from Ruda Slaska lead by two architects - Jan Kubec and Magdalena Gilder. With a team of few people, the practice was better known abroad than inlands. Primarily interested in competitions, they have had few completed designs. The Competition Jury got amazed with what is the greatest asset of  Silesian school of architecture - the reluctance to overtake the design with an exuberant form. The concept proposed by Rar-2 studio perfectly fit into the landscape  and the urban context of this part of Warsaw. The major problem was the location of the new center - by the river and over the Wisłostrada tunnel which could not bare the structure of the building itself. Therefore, the building was based on a prestressed beams located on both sides of the tunnel.

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Next to RAr-2 Laboratory of Architecture, responsible for architectural design, the participant of the investment was Buro Happold servicing with concept development, building design stage and structural design as well as supervision over the executive design stage. The general contractor was Warsaw-based company Warbud SA. The newly created building refer to the wave form and contain many innovative structural and exceptional finishing materials solutions. Exhibition halls are lit with natural light coming from skylights resembling volcanic craters. These also assist with the temperature and air circulation control. Facades are made of stained fiber cement plates. Eco-friendly facade solutions have been developed by a team of artists, engineers, geologists and landscape architects. Planetarium clearly dominates over the rest of the building resembling a boulder, covered with a special red coating glass. The building is surrounded by 'Explorers Park', an natural extension of a green roof - "Garden of Geology."

The main challenge faced by Buro Happold, was to allocate fifteen thousand square meters of usable area onto two levels , "L" shaped building melting into Vistula river landscape of the capital city. A key obstacle was to avoid an impact of the building onto the six roadways underground tunnel below. Yet another problem associated with the proximity of the river was to provide protection against flooding.  Last year, when Vistula River reached its highest level from one hundred and sixty years, engineers had a perfect opportunity to test flooding protection systems. It has turned out that the building passed this test without any serious damage or destruction. 



The mission of the most advanced educational and cultural centre in Poland is to fun the curiosity of knowledge, support cognitive processes and learning, help with understanding of science and also share the knowledge with bigger audience. The center in a neat and attractive manner combines science with art. It blurs boundaries between science and humanities, with no forced distinction between the power of empirical results and philosophical understanding. Through presentations, workshops, laboratory sessions in the multimedia Planetarium (which will be opened in 2011), as well as concerts, performances and other artistic events the center will built a positive image of science, non-specialists to get accustomed, turning its guests into research and development of knowledge enthusiast. For both parties  science and culture collaboration is a chance for and dynamic development in the future.

The centre will be opened in several stages. From November the fifth, last year, there are three hundred exhibits and fifty five permanent exhibitions available and held in Module A of the building: "The roots of civilization," "Light zone", "Human in motion", "Human and Environment" and a special gallery for children "Bzzz!,". In December, The Robotic Theater, where art is performed by machines, has been launched. The rest of the exhibits will be available for visitors soon, including laboratories, gallery Re: generation and conference center. This year, Copernicus Science Centre,will host ECSITE (European Network of Science Centres and Museums) conference - one of the biggest events in environment, science centers and museums society.



Thus, Warsaw has been enriched by another 'not to miss' building over the visit in capital - also for the reason of spectacular roof terrace view over the New National Stadium. 
Wojciech Prastowski