Rise and fall of a beloved institution

How the province's cherished museum fell into a state of disrepair over the years

- RAJU MUDHAR

With the abrupt closing of the Science Centre last week due to an engineering report that said roof panels are in danger of collapsing, there has been an outpouring of emotion and soul searching about what the centre has meant to Ontarians.

For a 10-year-old boy, it was a rock from out of this world that left him wanting to reach the stars.

"My biggest 'whoa' moment at the Ontario Science Centre was not just running into this hall of all these theories turned into practice, where I could run around and actually try stuff out, but to see a small piece of something that I had been imagining" said former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. "A small, actual piece of the moon that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had picked up and brought all the way back on Apollo and put it into a container and then shipped to Toronto and put right there for me to see it." Hadfield was featured in a fundraising video for the Science Centre in 2020. His moon rock experience happened shortly after the centre opened and, like generations of children in Ontario, he had fun and memorable moments created at the institution. Things came fullor bit for Hadfield, who was the basis of an exhibit there in 2015. It is that kind of a spark that has motivated countless people that have worked at the Science Centre and was the key behind architect Raymond Moriyama's vision of a place where people could interact with and immerse themselves in science.

With the abrupt closing of the Science Centre last month due to an engineering report that said roof panels are in danger of collapsing there has been an outpouring of emotion and soul searching about what the centre means to us. There have been pledges of financial support, demonstrations by people in the neighbourhood and an outery from scientists, architects and philanthropists here and around the globe.