Perhaps you remember a childhood visit to a science museum, or maybe taking your own children to one. Science museums around the world – however modernized – are just that, museums. Visitors go from room to room to see exhibits in a sort of classroom experience.
The Clore Science Garden is an entirely different experience. Located on the campus of the world-famous Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, it is the first totally outdoor interactive science museum in the world, one operated entirely by the visitors.
The new park, run by the Davidson Institute of Science Education, Weizmann’s educational outreach division, officially opened last summer. It combines science, art, and nature in a series of more than 100 installations and hands-on displays unique in the world. Each of the eight complexes – Light, Movement, Code, Life, Matter, Brain, Earth, and Growth – offers a look at nature through different perspectives.
The garden is small – 13 dunams (3.2 acres) – which makes it easy to walk from realm to realm, each one encompassing a different environment. The garden’s design “walks a fine line between art, aesthetics, and science,” explains head curator Yahel Atsmon.
A unique science museum 'as fun as Disneyland'
“We wanted this unique science museum to be as fun as Disneyland, as beautiful as a museum of modern art, and as thought-provoking as the research at the Weizmann Institute,” declares Amir Schorr, CEO of Fast Music Interactive, and curator and project manager of the Clore Science Garden.
It was, he says, a unique concept. “When we started consultations with Davidson on how to design the park, we wanted to re-think what a science museum should be. The idea of a scientific amusement park was the common ground of how we’d imagined it. This is very different from what you find around the world,” explains Schorr. “The idea is not necessarily to teach you the science but rather something that makes you think. It’s the way that we experience something.”
“The scientific input of the project came entirely from Weizmann scientists, of course,” adds Atsmon. “But we wanted an emotional experience, to let visitors of all ages have fun. This is not just the science aspect one usually sees in science parks. It’s something that gives you a total experience, taking you out of your world and entering a different one.”
The ambitious project took five years and was re-designed and completely rebuilt from the original prize-winning Clore Garden of Science. The new project was conceived by Liat Ben David, the former CEO of the Davidson Institute for Science Education, and was the collaborative work of several teams that included Weizmann scientists, Davidson educators, and artists. The complexes and exhibits were planned, designed, and built by the Israeli firm Fast Music Interactive, experts in art and science exhibitions, which planned, built, and managed the project, with the help of international partners.
Each of the eight complexes in the garden offers a look at nature from a different point of view. The interactive stations are operated entirely by the visitors when the installations come to life, sometimes musically.
For example, a giant kaleidoscope illustrates how light interacts with different materials to create stunning visual effects. The Movement exhibit has a series of interactive installations, including a giant pinball machine that demonstrate the mechanics of movement using gravity and water, providing a hands-on understanding of physical principles.
This writer spent time in the Everything Brain complex, with its somewhat mind-blowing installations revealing optical illusions: We think we’re seeing one thing, and it’s something else. It’s understanding ways in which our brains process images.
The iconic centerpiece of the Science Garden is the massive Clore Person. The giant sculpture, the height of a four-story building, contains inflatable lungs, arteries, a heart, and a voice box. Visitors can climb up inside the “body” and activate all the “organs,” while those standing outside can watch how our bodily systems work. When the sculpture is lit up at night, all the parts of the body are visible.
Designed as a giant periodic table, the 250-seat amphitheater serves as a venue for educational presentations and events. The geodesic dome, which formerly housed an ecosphere, has been converted into a planetarium-like movie theater. Visitors can lie on large cushions on the floor and gaze up at the stars and movies projected on the ceiling and walls.
“I always tell my team, ‘Don’t design for kids, design for yourself,’” comments Schorr. “I still have an inner kid in me. We aimed for a challenge for everybody, not just kids. When a scientific park is located in the middle of one of the best scientific research centers in the world, it doesn’t matter what age you are, you will get something out of the exhibits,” he says.
Several international groups were also involved with the design and construction of the installations, including from England, South Africa, Germany, and Switzerland. The Mexican group Arquitectura Mixta spent six months making the bamboo tree house by hand. Crafted entirely of natural sustainable materials, it has hanging tunnels, viewing platforms, and lounging nets.
The signs along the way have QR codes, where one can access extended information about the exhibits, as well as a link to the Davidson Institute’s website in English, Hebrew, Arabic, German, and Spanish.
https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/en■
The Clore Science Garden was funded mainly by the Clore Foundation, with additional funding from The Weizmann Institute. The Science Garden is accessible all year round. Guided tours can be arranged. For information and tickets: https://davidson.org.il/gan-hamada/ | Tel: 972-08-937-8300