The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI, ) is a science and technology museum aimed at children and teens in Portland, Oregon, United States. It contains three auditoriums, including a large-screen theatre, planetarium, and exhibition halls with hands-on permanent exhibits focused on natural sciences, industry, and technology. OMSI also regularly utilizes transient exhibits focusing on other disciplines.
History Beginning in 1903, odd artifacts were displayed in hallways and alcoves in Portland City Hall arranged by Colonel L. L. Hawkins. When the collection was evicted in 1936, about 12,000 artifacts were stored throughout the city.
On November 5, 1944, the Oregon Museum Foundation was founded with the mission of establishing an Oregon Museum of History, Science, and Industry. It displayed its first collection of natural history objects at the Portland Hotel. Subsequent small exhibits occurred around town to generate interest and donations. In 1949, a house at 908 NE Hassalo St. was donated by Ralph B Lloyd, the Lloyd of the Lloyd District and Lloyd Center to establish the museum. Within a year, the Pacific Northwest's first public planetarium opened in a dome on the front lawn.
By 1955, OMSI's annual attendance had grown to 25,000. The need for expansion led volunteers to build a new site at Washington Park, achieving the original goal of establishing a hands-on museum. It opened to the public on August 3, 1958,"Opening of Science and Industry Museum Draws 4,000". The Sunday Oregonian, August 4, 1958, p. 10. following a formal dedication by the governor on June 7."Years’ Dream Comes True: Holmes Dedicates Science Museum". The Sunday Oregonian, June 8, 1958, p. 16. A planetarium was again included. The new building at the southwest corner of what was then Hoyt Park (now part of Washington Park) was located adjacent to the then-new site of the Portland Zoo (now the Oregon Zoo), which began a one-year phased move in the same month as the new OMSI was dedicated."Many See Zoo, Train". The Oregonian, June 9, 1958, p. 15. The two attractions remained neighbors, sharing a parking lot, until 1992. The planetarium at the Washington Park site was originally a 90-seat"Space Film At OMSI". The Oregonian, June 13, 1958, p. 35. facility housed in a temporary dome; in 1967, it was replaced by a larger 142-seat facility in a distinctive dodecahedral (12-sided) building equipped with a new projector."New OMSI Planetarium Offers Story Of Stars". The Oregonian, December 15, 1967, p. 41.
1992 move
By the mid-1980s, 600,000 people per year were visiting the building, which was designed for only 100,000. Expansion at the Washington Park site was deemed infeasible, and in 1986 it was announced that the museum would move to a new location on the east bank of the Willamette River, where a much larger building would be constructed. Property that included the historic Station L power plant was donated by Portland General Electric, and building construction was paid for by a fundraising campaign. In 1992, OMSI opened at the new site, which continues to be the current location. (The building at the Washington Park site later in 2001 became the Portland Children's Museum.) The construction integrated the existing PGE turbine building and included the creation of a 330-seat OMNIMAX theater. The facility also includes a 200-seat planetarium with Digistar 3 technology.
21st century In 2004, the Turbine Hall was closed from September through November for renovations in which the Discovery Space and Technology Lab changed places and a new Inventors Ballroom was added. Also added were a small staging area for public exhibit demonstrations and a bridge connecting a new metal staircase with the mezzanine exhibits.
The museum started planning for an expansion of the facility in 2006. In 2008, OMSI began finalizing the plans for the expansion, which was estimated to cost about $500 million and would double the size of the museum. They began working to secure the funds for the expansion in 2009, but decided to hold off on the plans in 2010 after the poor economy had made it difficult to try to raise funds for the project. In 2023, the city of Portland Design Commission approved a new hub in Central Eastside. This hub would be designed for science learning, arts, and culture. These plans would renovate a 10-block district and construct 1,200 units of housing space (with a focus on Indigenous heritage) and public green space.
The OMNIMAX dome theater, an IMAX theatre located within the premises, closed in September of 2013 to be converted into a traditional flat-screen theatre. The current screen is classified as a Premium large format (PLF) screen, measuring approximately four stories in height.The theatre was officially renamed to the 'Empirical Theater' and reopened in December 2013.
As part of the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum received between $2 million and $5 million in federally backed small business loans from Heritage Bank as part of the Paycheck Protection Program.
Exhibits and attractions OMSI has five different specialized exhibit halls, a planetarium, and a submarine exhibit.
USS Blueback
The was purchased by OMSI in February 1994. This submarine appeared in the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October before being towed to its present location, a pier adjacent to the museum.USS Blueback Submarine It was opened to the public on May 15, 1994, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in September 2008. The propeller is a National Submarine Memorial located outside of the main museum area, beside the Eastbank Esplanade. The submarine is available for daily guided tours and sleepovers.
Featured Exhibit Hall The Featured Exhibit Hall is used for temporary exhibits created by OMSI or those brought in from museums around the world. Past exhibits have included "Grossology" (Winter–Spring 2001), "Giants of the Gobi" (1997), "A T-rex named Sue" (September 2001 – January 2002), and "CSI: The Experience" (May–September 2009). Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds 3, opened on June 7, 2007, and closed on October 7, 2007. By late September 2007, the exhibit had received 300,000 visitors, setting the record as OMSI's most visited traveling exhibit. In September 2015, OMSI hosted the National Guitar Museum's exhibition "GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked the World." +List of featured and traveling exhibits at OMSIStart dateEnd dateExhibitLinksReferences/notesMarch 1, 1997September 1, 1997Giants of the GobiWinter 2001Spring 2001GrossologyWebsiteSeptember 2001January 2002A T-Rex Named SueWebsiteJune 7, 2007October 7, 2007Gunther von Hagens's Body Worlds 3WebsiteMay 2009September 2009CSI: The ExperienceWebsite December 2009January 2011Samson the Colossal T. Rex DiscoveryJanuary 30, 2010May 31, 2010Space: A Journey to Our FutureWebsiteJuly 2, 2011September 18, 2011Game On 2.0WebsiteSeptember 2012January 6, 2013GrossologyWebsiteSeptember 2015January 10, 2016GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked The WorldWebsiteOctober 2, 2015January 3, 2016Genome: Unlocking Life's CodeWebsiteFebruary 13, 2016May 8, 2016Game MastersWebsiteJune 18, 2016January 8, 2017Journey to SpaceWebsite February 18, 2017May 29, 2017The Art of the BrickWebsiteJune 24, 2017October 22, 2017PompeiiNovember 18, 2017February 19, 2018Illusion: Nothing Is as It SeemsWebsiteMarch 17, 2018September 3, 2018Robot RevolutionWebsiteOctober 6, 2018January 27, 2019Discovery of King TutFebruary 23, 2019September 2, 2019The Science Behind PixarWebsiteOctober 5, 2019February 17, 2020Christopher Marley's Exquisite CreaturesWebsiteMarch 20, 2021September 6, 2021Dinosaurs RevealedWebsiteMarch 2022September 2022The World of Leonardo da VinciWebsiteOctober 8, 2022April 9, 2023Marvel: Universe of Super HeroesWebsiteMay 13, 2023January 28, 2024Orcas: Our Shared FutureWebsiteMarch 2, 2024September 8, 2024Tyrannosaurs – Meet the FamilyWebsiteOctober 10, 2024Feb. 17, 2025Exquisite Creatures RevealedWebsiteMarch 15, 2025Sept. 1, 2025Jurassic World by BrickmanWebsiteMarch 21, 2026October 18, 2026TITANIC: The Artifact ExhibitionWebsite
Turbine Hall
The Turbine Hall is named for the large retired steam turbine from its days as a PGE power plant. It features exhibits about engineering, physics, chemistry, and space travel. The Turbine Hall has two floors. On the main floor are the large exhibits and enrichment areas. On the mezzanine there are smaller exhibits.
The Innovation Station includes hands-on exhibits related to technology and invention. Laboratories for physics, chemistry, technology, and laser holography are connected to the Turbine Hall.
The Chemistry Lab is the first hands-on wet chemistry laboratory in the nation. There are six stations that allow visitors to learn about chemical interactions by participating in experiments that share a common theme. Themes rotate weekly and include the chemistry of toys, the nature of matter, biochemistry, environmental chemistry, industrial chemistry, chemical reactions, everyday chemistry, and crime scene chemistry. Chemical reaction demonstrations are given daily and are often related to the weekly theme.
Physics Lab exhibits include a Van de Graaff generator (a static electricity generator), motion detectors, electrical circuits, Morse code, magnets, computers that simulate basic properties of physics, and musical instruments.
The Laser/Holography Lab, which is open for approximately one hour every day, presents 30-minute demonstrations constructing a hologram.
The Vernier Technology Lab investigates the impact of technology on society. Rotating interactive exhibits allow visitors to investigate technologies such as robots and computers, security technology, biomedical technology, communications technology, and household technology. Visitors can also use a wide variety of educational software on internet-connected computers.
Life Sciences Hall The Life Sciences Hall, on the second floor of the museum, offers exhibits about biology. These include a collection of preserved fetuses at nearly every stage of development, from a few weeks after conception to full-term, and the exhibit Amazing Feats of Aging, which is concerned with the biology of aging. One of the features of this exhibit is the Age Machine, a computer program that allows visitors to capture and then "age" a picture of themselves. The Life Sciences Hall also contains the Life Science Laboratory and the Earth Science Hall.
The Life Sciences Laboratory houses a wide variety of live animals, such as rats, walking sticks, chameleons, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, other mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Volunteers and staff members demonstrate and lead a variety of a group activities such as owl pellet dissections and exploration of the differences between male and female skulls and pelvises.
Earth Science Hall The Earth Science Hall, located on the second floor, features geology-oriented exhibits and two specialized laboratories. The Watershed Laboratory gives visitors an experience in constructing an erosion cycle out of a physical model of a river. Visitors can learn about the life cycle of salmon and investigate microscopic organisms from local waterways through a video microscope. Visitors to the Paleontology Laboratory watch staff members and volunteers excavating fossils, such as dinosaur bones.
Science Playground