Sri Lanka Planetarium
ශ්රී ලංකා ග්රහලෝකාගාරය | |
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| Established | 1 February 1965 |
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| Location | Prof. Stanley Wijesundaran Mawatha, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka. |
| Type | Planetarium |
| Director | K. Arunu Perera[1] |
| Architect | A. N. S. Kulasinghe |
| Website | www |
Sri Lanka Planetarium (Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකා ග්රහලෝකාගාරය) is a public planetarium located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It is the first and only planetarium in the country and maintained as an institute under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Research.[2]
The Planetarium was established on 1 February 1965 by the State Engineering Corporation as a special feature for the Ceylon industrial exhibition held in Colombo same year.[3][4] The planetarium was designed by the chief engineer from the State Engineering Corporation of Ceylon, A. N. S. Kulasinghe, and was constructed by engineers from Germany.[5] The building takes elements from the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (Sir Frederick Gibberd - 1960) and the Cathedral of Brasília (Oscar Niemeyer - 1960).[6] The building has a reinforced concrete floor and a pre-stressed concrete folded plate roof, which was pre-cast on-site.[6] The building was funded by the German Democratic Republic as a gift to Ceylon. The planetarium is 21.33 m (70.0 ft) high and 37.8 m (124 ft) in diameter.[citation needed]
The building was refurbished in 2014 at a cost of Rs 200 million and re-opened to the public on 9 December.[7]
The planetarium has a digital fully-spherical projector stationed at the centre of the building, which projects an artificial sky on the 23 m (75 ft) diameter dome above a 570-seat auditorium.[8] The universal projector is a product of Carl Zeiss AG East Germany.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ "Sri Lanka Planetarium to re-open on 7th July". 4 July 2020.
- ^ "INSTITUTIONS#Planetarium". www.motr.gov.lk. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
- ^ "Our Planetarium". www.planetarium.gov.lk. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
- ^ International Symposium on Innovative World of Concrete (ICI-IWC-93), August 30-September 3, 1993, Bangalore, India: Proceedings. Vol. 1. Oxford & IBH Publishing Company. 1993. pp. 1–32. ISBN 9788120408432.
- ^ "Planetarium". Amazinglanka. September 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
- ^ a b Pieris, Anoma (2013). Architecture and Nationalism in Sri Lanka: The Trouser Under the Cloth. Routledge. p. 164. ISBN 9780415630023.
- ^ "Modernised planetarium opens". The Daily Mirror. 5 December 2014. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
- ^ "Sri Lanka Planetarium with enhanced technology to be opened today". News First. 5 December 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
- ^ "Sri Lanka Planetarium". World Planetariums Database. Retrieved 27 October 2022.