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Rose Center Design Began on a Napkin
By Tierney O'Dea
Special to space.com
posted: 10:28 am ET
26 February 2000
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Architect James Stewart Polshek scribbled his first concept for the remodeled Hayden Planetarium on a napkin simply a sphere inside a squareArchitect James Stewart Polshek scribbled his first concept for the remodeled Hayden Planetarium on a napkin simply a sphere inside a square. But he calls his reaction, years later, to the completed Rose Center for Earth and Space (which includes the planetarium) the "wow effect." Even though he designed and oversaw every step of the its construction, looking upon the Center now makes him feel "like a kid on Christmas morning." Polshek cites two main influences for his architectural plan. The first was a never-built design for an 18th century spherical planetarium -- a memorial to Sir Isaac Newton. The second was Wallace K. Harrisons Perisphere, an icon of the 1939 New York Worlds Fair that demonstrated a "seminal and optimistic vision of the future." Ellen Futter, the American Museum of Natural Historys president since 1993, says she recognized the potential of Polshek's idea immediately. She calls the Rose Center "architecture with a purpose." 
Inside the Rose Center for Earth and Space, scale models of Jupiter and Saturn hang next to the Hayden Sphere, which represents the sun in relative size. Building on that idea, Futter commissioned renowned designer Ralph Applebaum to envision exhibits that would elegantly transmit the complexity of the universe to the diverse population that would experience it. The result of his efforts are exhibits called the Cosmic Walkway (a spiraling, walkable timeline of the universe), Big Bang Theater (a three-minute show narrated by Jodie Foster which explains the start of the universe) and Scales of the Universe (a powers of ten display that uses the sphere as a frame of reference).
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