The center's original buildings were the
United States Science Pavilion designed by
Minoru Yamasaki for the 1962
World's Fair in Seattle. The World of Science, along with the Worlds of Art, Entertainment, Commerce and Industry, and Tomorrow were the five main theme areas that were installed the World's Fair. Located at the southernmost end of the fairgrounds and west of the Space Needle, the World of Science was located next to the arches, an easily-identifiable landmark. The fountains located at the entrance of the center appeared in the movie ''
It Happened at the World's Fair'' with
Elvis Presley. After the World's Fair closed, the US Science Pavilion was re-opened as
Pacific Science Center. The land and buildings were leased for $1.00 a year until 2004, when the title deed was signed over and the Pacific Science Center Foundation officially took ownership.
1960s During the 1960s, many of the center's exhibits were carried over from the original World's Fair exhibition; only a few of these original exhibits remain today. Currently, exhibits remaining from the World's Fair are the Lens and Mirror Machine and a suspended model of the Earth's moon. One of the more notable science exhibits during the World's Fair was a ramp where the buildings were built at a tilt (the "illusion ramp"); this exhibit was reproduced in the late 1990s. The domed Spacerium, now known as the Seattle Laser Dome and used for
laser light show, was designed for a wide-angle movie journey through space. Before
IMAX, a previous movie theater there showed films such as NASA's
Apollo 8 (to the soundtrack of Yellow Submarine) and The 21st Century with
Walter Cronkite. Before being elected governor of the state of Washington,
Dixy Lee Ray, served as Science Center director for many years. Ray helped promote the Science Center among school children by hosting a school-age geared science program televised on Seattle
PBS station
KCTS-9.
1970s In the mid-1970s, the lower-level math area was dominated by the
Mathematica: A World of Numbers... and Beyond exhibit, where demonstrators in orange jackets (known as "OJ"s) made
soap bubbles and showed audiences how the stylish new
Chevrolet Chevette was paving the way for the quick adoption of the
Metric system. Upstairs, a giant apparatus known as the "
probability machine" would ring an alarm before emptying out a bin of balls. The entire exhibition had been originally designed as an exhibit for the IBM Pavilion at the
1964–65 New York World's Fair. It was permanently removed around 1980. An aerospace building contained a full-sized
lunar module mockup from which suited
astronauts would climb out. The Life Building contained the
Sea Monster House, a replica of a
First Nations longhouse, as well as a working hydraulic model of
Puget Sound and the
Mount Baker volcanic exhibit. With the physical sciences, the physics
witch on
Halloween would ask "Would you like to boil
blood in a paper cup?" or
Groucho Marx would dump
liquid nitrogen on the ponds after a demo. The presenters in question here were Janie Mann, who did dynamic combustion shows dressed as a witch circa 1977–78, and Dan Cox, who did physics demos as Groucho Marx in the same era. Cox would later go on to become a professor of physics. These staff were part of the "OJ" program (short for "Orange Jacket", the uniform of the time for Science Center tour guides and visitor assistants). The program consisted of 24 work study students, whose leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Carl Linde, set a format for the program that would last into the late 1990s. The
Eames theater was originally created for a special multi-screen
IBM movie for the World Fair. It was later converted into an
IMAX screen in 1979, the first of two IMAX theaters at the center.
1980s Pacific Science Center grew dramatically in the 1980s. A key step in its evolution was the hiring of George Moynihan as executive director in 1980. Moynihan, from the
Lawrence Hall of Science in
Berkeley, California, would run the center for the next two decades. His leadership team in the 1980s included Diane Carlson in public programs, Dennis Schatz in education and exhibits, and Dave Taylor in exhibits. In 1984 the science center took a gamble on hosting the exhibit
China: 7000 Years of Discovery. The success of the exhibit helped put PSC on the map as a leading science center. Other notable successes later in the decade were several iterations of a traveling robotic dinosaur exhibit, which led to the center eventually installing a permanent dinosaur display in the 1990s. Pacific Science Center hosted the annual
Association of Science and Technology Centers conference in October 1987 and opened several major exhibits in the same period, including
Kids Works,
Body Works, an animal area, and a tide pool. ==Design and architecture==