Photo courtesy of the Saint Louis Science Center.
Since opening in 1997, the Saint Louis Science Center's Exploradome has welcomed more than 2 million visitors to traveling exhibits and special events. It's a peculiar balloon-like building, nearly 29,000 square feet under a white polyvinyl bubble, kept inflated by various fans and airlocks.
But a week from today, the Exploradome will be demolished. With the opening of the Boeing Hall exhibition space a couple of years ago, the dome is no longer needed, and letting the wind out of its sails is expected to save the Science Center roughly $200,000 a year in utility costs. (Keeping a giant balloon constantly inflated is expensive—not to mention a little silly—and it doesn't have the best insulation.)
Those savings will be important, given the organization's financial difficulties in recent years. In the face of mounting debt and dwindling attendance, the Science Center has cut staff, canceled events, and reduced traveling exhibits. But President and CEO Bert Vescolani says removing the Exploradome is about more than reducing costs. He plans to turn the site of the dome into an outdoor exhibition space.
"It arguably could be our largest exhibit expansion since we've been open," he says. "So it could be pretty significant for us." There is also a basement under the dome, which will be left intact.
It might seem sad that this towering tent, with a volume of approximately 652,000 cubic feet, is going to be torn down, but it was originally intended to be a temporary space in the first place. In fact, it survived long past its original life expectancy. "Boy, our return on investment for that one was a good one," Vescolani says. "It stayed well beyond its plan."
And the dome has served the Science Center well over the years. It's hosted such popular exhibits as Body Worlds 3, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit (twice), and Grossology, as well as special events including Nelly's Black and White Ball.
It’s a funky, cool space," Vescolani says. "I have to be completely honest, in some ways, I’ll be sorry to see it leave, because it’s kind of this bubble next to the Science Center, but in a lot of other ways, it will provide us a great opportunity to extend the experience outside, and that’s what we’re looking forward to."
