Evoluon

About

The Evoluon is a UFO-shaped building located in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. It was built in 1966 as a science museum by the electronics and electrical company Philips. It quickly became a landmark in Eindhoven, where Philips was headquartered at the time.

The museum closed in 1989 and the building became a conference centre and exhibition venue in 1998. In 2022 it reopened for the general public again as the Next Nature Museum. The building is unique due to its very futuristic design, resembling a landed flying saucer.

It was designed by architects Leo de Bever and Louis Christiaan Kalff, while the exhibition it housed was conceived by James Gardner. De Bever and Kalff only got two demands for the design of the building, it had to be "spectacular" and it had to be possible to hold exhibitions in the building. Its concrete dome is 77 metres (253 ft) in diameter and is held in place by 169 kilometres (105 mi) of reinforcing steel bars.

In the 1960s and 1970s the Evoluon attracted large numbers of visitors due to its innovative interactive exhibitions. When competing science museums opened in other cities, the number of visitors declined and the original museum closed down in 1989. The...