Located in the Palace of Fine Arts, the Exploratorium is an experimental, hands-on museum designed to spark curiosity - regardless of your age or familiarity with science. Touch, pick up, and tinker with hundreds of exhibits. Your curiosity will guide you to endless discoveries! Established in...

Located in the Palace of Fine Arts, the Exploratorium is an experimental, hands-on museum designed to spark curiosity - regardless of your age or familiarity with science. Touch, pick up, and tinker with hundreds of exhibits. Your curiosity will guide you to endless discoveries! Established in 1969, the Exploratorium was conceived by physicist Frank Oppenheimer (1912-1985). It was Dr. Oppenheimer's vision to create a collection of interactive exhibits that would make natural phenomena accessible and understandable to everyone. Dr. Oppenheimer secured a home for his museum in San Francisco, at the Palace of Fine Arts, a vacant remnant of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. The doors opened in 1969, with a few dozen exhibits. The museum grew rapidly, though, as more and more new exhibits were built, and the "shop" established itself as the heart of the museum. Today, there are hundreds of exhibits in the museum visited by over half a million people each year. Through institutes, workshops, and exhibit sales and rentals, the Exploratorium has also exported its exhibitry, expertise, and teaching philosophy to museums throughout the U.S. and around the world. In 2009, the Exploratorium celebrates its 40th anniversary.