California Academy of Sciences
Museum · Golden Gate Park, California
The natural history museum on the south side of the Music Concourse, at 55 Music Concourse Drive. It is open Monday to Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and holds Thursday NightLife from 6 to 10 p.m. for visitors of 21 and over. Its named venues are the Steinhart Aquarium, the Morrison Planetarium, the Osher Rainforest, a four-story rainforest housed in a glass dome, the Kimball Natural History Museum and a living roof. The Steinhart holds a 212,000-gallon living coral reef and over 1,000 animal species.
History
The Academy's buildings on this site went up in sequence: the North American Hall, now Wild California, followed by the Steinhart Aquarium in 1923, Simson African Hall in 1934, the Morrison Planetarium in 1952, Cowell Hall in 1969, Wattis Hall in 1976, the Fish Roundabout in 1977 and Life Through Time in 1990. Two bronze portrait reliefs by Edgar Walters were commissioned by the architect Lewis Hobart upon construction of the Steinhart Aquarium in 1923. Maya Lin's Where the Land Meets the Sea, marine grade stainless steel of 2008, was commissioned for the Academy.
Visit
55 Music Concourse Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118
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