If you want to examine the human history into upward spiral, head to the new California Academy of Science located in Golden Gate Park. Designed by Mr. Piano, the academy has astonishing floating green roof of undulating mounds of plants.

 

‘This building’s greatness as architecture, however, is rooted in a cultural history that stretches back through Modernism to Classical Greece. ‘

 

This science academy gives the sense of weightlessness. A row of steel columns soaring 36 feet high along the facade lends the building a classical air. The impression of lightness is accentuated by a wafer-thin canopy above that creates the illusion that the roof is only millimeters thick.

 

A glass lobby allows you to gaze straight through the building to the park on the other side. Other views open into exhibition spaces with their own microclimates. The entire building serves as a sort of specimen case, a framework for pondering the natural world while straining to disturb it as little as possible.

 

The roof of the academy’s lobby, supported by a gossamer like web of cables, swells upward as if the entire room were breathing.One of the building’s many environmental features, these windows let warm air escape and create a gentle breeze that reinforces the connection to the natural setting.

 

The academy has a museum, with African Hall and gorgeous vaulted ceiling and dioramas of somnolent lions and grazing antelopes, integrating it into the new design.