Seattle’s Pacific Science Center Turns 50

Seattle, WA, USA (October 22, 2012) — Today, the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington, celebrates turns 50. Designed and built by the United States Government as the United States Science Exhibit, part of the Seattle World’s Fair, Pacific Science Center first opened its doors as a private not- for-profit on October 22, 1962, the day after the Fair closed.

The United States Science Exhibit began with Ray and Charles Eames’s 10-minute short film The House of Science, followed by an exhibit on the development of science, ranging from mathematics and astronomy to atomic science and genetics. The Spacearium held up to 750 people at a time for a simulated voyage first through the Solar System and then through the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond. Further exhibits presented the scientific method and the “horizons of science.” This last looked at “Science and the individual,” “Control of man’s physical surroundings,” “Science and the problem of world population,” and “Man’s concept of his place in an increasingly technological world.”

The theater space that housed The House of Science is now the science center’s Eames IMAX Theater.