phaeno Wolfs­burg

The phaeno is a sci­ence centre and of­fers a world of ex­per­i­ence for the whole fam­ily. You can con­duct ex­per­i­ments and mar­vel at all man­ner of phe­nom­ena.

The build­ing it­self is also very im­press­ive. It was de­signed by Zaha Hadid, a star ar­chi­tect ori­gin­ally from Ir­aq. The build­ing was de­signed in an av­ant-garde idiom, can be used flex­ibly and was com­pleted in 2005. Its con­struc­tion was ex­cep­tion­ally tech­no­lo­gic­ally de­mand­ing, us­ing spe­cial state-of-the-art ma­ter­i­als such as self-com­pact­ing con­crete and spe­cially de­veloped glass façades. The build­ing struc­ture stands on con­ic­al feet and is el­ev­ated high above the street. Un­der­neath the struc­ture, a sort of ar­ti­fi­cial land­scape opens up with gentle hills and val­leys. The build­ing is mul­ti­fa­ceted and em­bod­ies a cer­tain dy­nam­ism. In­side, at a height of sev­en metres, an ad­ven­ture land of craters, caves and plat­eaus opens up. The Brit­ish daily news­pa­per The Guard­i­an de­scribed the phaeno as ‘one of the twelve most sig­ni­fic­ant mod­ern build­ings in the world’.

Mar­vel at a six metre high fire tor­nado, cre­ate cloud rings, feel your way across a dark space or lie com­fort­ably on a bed of nails like a fakir: the phaeno in Wolfs­burg, Ger­many is an en­ter­tain­ing day out for all ages. Come and see how more than 350 ex­traordin­ary phe­nom­ena can arouse your curi­os­ity and re­veal the secrets of nature. There is something for every­one in Ger­many’s one and only ex­per­i­ment centre, whatever your age or level of know­ledge. And best of all: vis­it­ors have a say in, and full con­trol over, what hap­pens dur­ing the tour. There are no stip­u­lated routes through the centre, curi­os­ity leads the way and takes vis­it­ors through fas­cin­at­ing themed areas, e.g. en­ergy, mir­rors, sight or life. Adults and chil­dren can at­tempt to brave the cold through the power of thought, see in­fin­ite re­flec­tions of them­selves, freeze their own shad­ow, dis­cov­er genes, find out what elec­tri­city feels like or land gently on their feet like a cat.