The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science Building, also known as the "People's Observatory", is located at 10 Children's Way in the

Allegheny Center Allegheny Center is a neighborhood on Pittsburgh's North Side. Its zip code is 15212, and it has representation on Pittsburgh City Council by both council members for District 6 (Downtown, North Shore) and District 1 (Northside). History In ...

neighborhood of

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Construction and opening

The planetarium opened on October 24, 1939, and was the fifth major planetarium in the United States. The Buhl Foundation completely funded the construction and furnishing of the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science building at a cost of $1.07 million. The building was named after Henry Buhl, Jr. and was designed by architects Ingham, Pratt & Boyd in the " stripped Classical style" and featured an octagonal copper dome that housed the projector.

Equipment

Equipment in the Buhl Planetarium included a Zeiss II Planetarium projector with 106 lenses capable of producing 9000 images of stars. The projector was manufactured by the Zeiss Optical Works in Jena, Germany, at a cost of $135,000. The planetarium had a 492-seat “Theater of the Stars” with a 65-foot-diameter dome. This projector was officially retired in 1994. The Buhl Planetarium was the first building of its type to have a special sound system for the hearing-impaired in its operating theater. The planetarium also housed a thirty-five foot long

Foucault pendulum The Foucault pendulum or Foucault's pendulum is a simple device named after French physicist Léon Foucault, conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth's rotation. A long and heavy pendulum suspended from the high roof above a circular a ...

and a ten-inch,

Siderostat A heliostat (from ''helios'', the Greek word for ''sun'', and ''stat'', as in stationary) is a device that includes a mirror, usually a plane mirror, which turns so as to keep reflecting sunlight toward a predetermined target, compensating f ...

-type, refractor telescope (now the second largest of its type). The planetarium also housed the Miniature Railroad and Village from 1954.

Closing and historic landmark designation

The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science closed to the public on August 31, 1991. The sky show and science exhibits were moved to the

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in 1994. In April 2002, Pittsburgh City Council approved the lease of the building and it is now part of the

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is a hands-on interactive children's museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is in the Allegheny Center neighborhood in Pittsburgh's Northside. History The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh was founded in 1983 i ...

. It was added to the

List of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmarks Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF) Historic Landmark plaque program was begun in 1968 in order to identify architecturally significant structures as well as significant pieces of Pittsburgh's local heritage throughout Allegheny Cou ...

in 2001, and the

List of City of Pittsburgh historic designations A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby union ...

on July 29, 2005.

References

{{Pittsburgh Educational buildings in Pittsburgh Buildings and structures completed in 1939 1939 establishments in Pennsylvania