Former name | Centennial Science Centre |
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Established | September 26, 1969 |
Location | 770 Don Mills Road Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3C 1T3 |
Coordinates | 43°43′00″N 79°20′18″W / 43.71667°N 79.33833°W |
Type | Science center |
Accreditation | Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) |
Director | Maurice Bitran, CEO Brian Chu, Chair |
Owner | Government of Ontario |
Public transit access |
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Website | http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/ |
Ontario Science Centre (French: Centre des sciences de l'Ontario) is a science museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, near the Don Valley Parkway about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) northeast of downtown on Don Mills Road just south of Eglinton Avenue East. It is built down the side of a wooded ravine formed by one branch of the Don River located in Flemingdon Park.
Planning for the Science Centre started in 1961 during Toronto's massive expansion of the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1964, Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama was hired to design the site. The Brutalist design, which consists of three main buildings connected by a series of bridges and escalators, follows the natural contours of the Don River ravine, into which the Centre descends. Construction started in 1966 with plans to make it a part of the city's 1967 Canadian Centennial celebrations. It was first officially named the "Centennial Centre of Science and Technology". However construction was not complete in 1967, and the Science Centre did not open to the public until two years later, on September 26, 1969.
At the time, the Science Centre was a pioneer for its hands-on approach to science, along with San Francisco's Exploratorium and Detroit's Museum of Science and Technology. Unlike a traditional museum, where exhibits are for viewing only, the majority of the exhibits at the Science Centre were interactive, while many others were live demonstrations (e.g. metalworking). The Communications room contained a number of computerized displays, including a very popular tic-tac-toe game run on a PDP-11 minicomputer.