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Fleischmann Planetarium

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1963, Raymond Hellmann. N. Virginia St.
  • Fleischmann Planetarium (Bret Morgan)

Set into a hillside at the north end of campus, the Fleischmann Planetarium takes advantage of the slope with 40-foot-tall windows on its south facade. The showpiece of the planetarium is its butterfly roof—an 11,000-square-foot, concrete-shelled hyperbolic paraboloid supported at only two points although weighing 180 tons. The combination of a paraboloid longitudinal section and a hyperbolic cross section gives the roof its distinctive butterfly shape. The large open space created by its span contains a planetarium designed to give the viewer a sense of being inside a sphere. The window wall on the south facade floods this space with daylight, and at night the building glows when lit from the inside.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Julie Nicoletta
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Data

What's Nearby

University of Nevada, Reno
Lincoln Hall
Noble H. Getchell Library
Mackay School of Mines
Morrill Hall

Citation

Julie Nicoletta, "Fleischmann Planetarium", [Reno, Nevada], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/NV-01-NW011.5.

Print Source

Buildings of Nevada, Julie Nicoletta. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 69-69.

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