Sri Lanka Planetarium

Sri Lanka Planetarium
ශ්‍රී ලංකා ග්‍රහලෝකාගාරය
Established 1 February 1965 (1965-02-01)
Location Prof. Stanley Wijesundaran Mawatha, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka.
Type Planetarium
Director K. P. K. Koralagama[1]
Website www.planetarium.gov.lk

Sri Lanka Planetarium 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 an special feature for the Ceylon industrial exhibition held in Colombo same year.[3] 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.[4] The building takes elements from the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (Sir Frederick Gibberd - 1960) and the Cathedral of Brasília (Oscar Niemeyer - 1960).[5] The building has a reinforced concrete floor and a pre-stressed concrete folded plate roof, which was pre-cast on-site.[5] The building was funded by the German Democratic Republic as a gift to Ceylon.

With the aid of a universal projector stationed at the centre of this building, the artificial sky is created on the domed screen above a 570 seat auditorium.[6] The universal projector is a product of Carl Zeiss AG East Germany.

References

  1. "Sri Lanka Planetarium". Government information centre. www.gic.gov.lk. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  2. "INSTITUTIONS#Planetarium". www.motr.gov.lk. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  3. "Our Planetarium". www.planetarium.gov.lk. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  4. "Planetarium". Amazinglanka. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  5. 1 2 Pieris, Anoma (2013). Architecture and Nationalism in Sri Lanka: The Trouser Under the Cloth. Routledge. p. 164. ISBN 9780415630023.
  6. "Sri Lanka Planetarium with enhanced technology to be opened today". News First. 5 December 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.