The IMAX Theater
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership · 1998
Next to the entrance dome stands a windowless block with a giant screen inside, seven storeys high and about ninety feet across, filling your entire field of view from the steeply banked seats. The theatre opened with the new Science Center in 1998 and shows a rotating programme of documentaries made for the giant format: films about the oceans, the Serengeti, the polar regions, dinosaurs and space, many in 3D, running around forty five minutes each. It is the one part of a visit to the permanent galleries that costs money, and for many families it is the treat at the end.
The experience depends on scale. The picture is projected so large and so sharply that your eyes wander across it as they would across a landscape, and the sound comes from speakers behind the screen and around the room. Sit near the middle, a little more than halfway back, for the most immersive view; the front rows are overwhelming and the 3D works best from the centre. The films are chosen to match the galleries, so a visit that starts with the kelp forest and ends with a film shot on a coral reef makes a satisfying whole.
The theatre is also part of the architecture. The Science Center's designers put the IMAX block and the glass Science Court side by side at the top of the park's main axis, so that the two buildings together make the entrance, one transparent and one solid. Tickets are sold at the desk in the Science Court and online, and shows fill up on wet days and school holidays. Check the schedule when you arrive, buy for a specific time, and plan your galleries around it; the line forms about fifteen minutes before each show.
Did You Know? The screen is so large that a single frame of IMAX film is about ten times the size of a frame of ordinary thirty five millimetre cinema film.
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