Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A learned society, a city rebuilt after 1906 and a museum under a living roof offer several ways into the story of the California Academy of Sciences.
On this page
California’s oldest science institution
Founded in 1853, the Academy is California’s oldest operating museum and research institution for the natural sciences. In its first year its members invited women to take part in every branch of natural science, and the botanist Alice Eastwood worked there from 1892 until 1949.
Today its collections hold more than 46 million specimens, and its scientists carry out research in fields from botany and entomology to marine biology.
A home in Golden Gate Park
After the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed its Market Street building, the Academy moved to Golden Gate Park in 1916. The Steinhart Aquarium followed in 1923, African Hall in 1934 and the Morrison Planetarium in 1952.
Damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake led to a complete rebuilding to a design by Renzo Piano, which reopened in 2008.
A building that teaches
The new building’s living roof, planted with California native plants, and its LEED Platinum certification reflect the Academy’s focus on the natural world.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
