Friends of the
Zeiss Public
Statement For
Telephone: 412-561-7876 By Glenn A.
Walsh:
Electronic Mail: < friendsofthezeiss@planetarium.cc >
Internet Web Site: < http://www.planetarium.cc > Lost for Display of
2008 April 28 Planetarium Artifacts
Good afternoon. I am Glenn A. Walsh of
Project Director of Friends of the
Zeiss.
On April 9,
“RoboWorld,” will be installed next
year—touted as “the largest and most comprehensive
robotics exhibit anywhere in the
nation," which will include
Robot Hall of Fame. While this is an
exciting new exhibition for the Science Center
and for
When the
it promised the City of
Projector and the large Mercator’s
Projection Map of the World would be reassembled
in a new, permanent
exhibit, which was not dependent on the
then-proposed
was to be completed by 2005, on the
second floor next to the existing
planetarium.
Following the cancellation of the
proposed
“The Final Frontier” exhibit. The 2006
deadline came and went with no exhibit and
no indication of when the exhibit would
open.
Now, it has been announced that the vast
majority of space on the
second floor, originally reserved for
traveling exhibits and for “The Final Frontier”
exhibit, would be used for the new
“RoboWorld” exhibit. The current Science Center
building has no other space available
for “The Final Frontier” exhibit.
I have now sent two letters to Carnegie
Museums of Pittsburgh President,
Dr. David M. Hillenbrand regarding this issue. Thus far, I have received only
one
reply, which
vaguely
states that the historic artifacts will be stored in “another facility…
until
such time as we determine their ultimate disposition.”
Our fear is that the historic Buhl
Planetarium artifacts will remain in warehouse
storage indefinitely and practically
forgotten, now that the
no space available. The only
a small $5 million facility to house the
“SportsWorks” exhibit, once the
it is unlikely this facility would
include the historic artifacts.
If The
Friends
of the Zeiss strongly
believes that they should be returned to the
original
Buhl Planetarium building. Due to custom design of the building,
the
original Buhl Planetarium is the only place where the Zeiss II Projector
and
10-inch Siderostat-type Refractor Telescope could be fully utilized to
teach
science to children; and, it is advantageous that the building is
currently
being used as a Children’s Museum.
Whether
in the Children’s Museum or the
and
historic artifacts should be displayed to the public. We ask that you
assist
in assuring that these publicly-owned artifacts are displayed for
the
benefit of
Thank
you.
gaw