Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A physicist’s idea, the Palace of Fine Arts and two old piers offer several ways into the story of the Exploratorium.
On this page
Learning by doing
The Exploratorium was founded in 1969 by Frank Oppenheimer, a physicist and educator, and opened that August in the Palace of Fine Arts.
Its exhibits are made to be touched and tried: today there are more than 650 interactive exhibits exploring science, art and perception.
A home on the waterfront
In 2013 the museum moved to Piers 15 and 17 on the Embarcadero, two piers built in 1931 and 1912. The architects EHDD adapted the piers and added the Bay Observatory.
The new campus has more than 600 exhibits, many of them made for Pier 15.
A museum that looks outwards
Out on the pier, the museum’s outdoor spaces and observatory invite visitors to look at the water, the weather and the city around them.
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.
