The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has launched a Renzo Piano-designed museum and visitor attraction, the Science Gateway, near Geneva.
The new centre was opened in the presence of Federal President Alain Berset on Saturday.
“May this portal to science become a place of gentle transition to a future-oriented career choice,” said Berset at the opening.
Science is the key to a sustainable future, said Italian physicist and CERN General Director Fabiola Giannotti. In the future, CERN will be able to receive up to half a million visitors a year instead of 125,000.
The building consists of large walk-through tubes that are connected to a glass bridge over a street. They are a reminder of the nearby Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle collider, a 27-kilometre underground ring-shaped accelerator, located north of Geneva to explore fundamental physics. “The building is like a spaceship about to land,” said the Italian architect Renzo Piano.
The LHC is one of the main attractions of the 8,000m2 Science Gateway, which has a series of hands-on interactive exhibits, such as exploring the properties of magnets.