Overzicht - Eindhoven - 20396787 - RCE - Cropped

The Evoluon is a UFO-shaped building located in

Eindhoven Eindhoven ( ; ) is a city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, located in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant, of which it is the largest municipality, and is also locat ...

, the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. It was built in 1966 as a

science museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, Industry (manufacturing), industry and Outline of industrial ...

by the electronics and electrical company

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

. It quickly became a landmark in Eindhoven, where Philips was headquartered at the time. The museum closed in 1989 and the building became a

conference centre A convention center (American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typica ...

and exhibition venue in 1998. In 2022 it reopened for the general public again as the Next Nature Museum. The building is unique due to its very futuristic design, resembling a landed

flying saucer A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...

. It was designed by architects Leo de Bever and Louis Christiaan Kalff, while the exhibition it housed was conceived by James Gardner. De Bever and Kalff only got two demands for the design of the building, it had to be "spectacular" and it had to be possible to hold exhibitions in the building. Its concrete dome is in diameter and is held in place by of reinforcing steel bars. In the 1960s and 1970s the Evoluon attracted large numbers of visitors due to its innovative interactive exhibitions. When competing science museums opened in other cities, the number of visitors declined and the original museum closed down in 1989. The building was converted into a conference centre which opened in 1998. In the UK the Evoluon is chiefly remembered from Bert Haanstra's wordless short film entitled simply ''Evoluon'', commissioned by Philips to publicise the museum, and shown as a trade test colour film on

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

television from 1968 to 1972. In October 2013 the Evoluon was used to stage four 3D-concerts by the German electronic band

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

, each before an audience of 1,200 spectators. Key band member

Ralf Hütter Ralf Hütter (born 20 August 1946) is a German musician and composer best known as the lead singer and keyboardist of Kraftwerk, which he founded with Florian Schneider in 1970, and became the only consistent member of the band (although he brief ...

handpicked the venue for its

retro-futuristic Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipat ...

look. Bespoke 3D-visuals of the saucer section of the building descending from space were used in the live rendition of their track ''Spacelab''. On September 24, 2022, the Evoluon reopened to the public with the ''RetroFuture'' exhibition. Overzicht_voorzijde_-_Eindhoven_-_20357095_-_RCE_crop.jpg, View from the north Luchtfoto_Randweg_Eindhoven,_Strijp_crop.jpg, Aerial view in 2009 Evoluon91.jpg, Night view in 1991 cmglee Evoluon lounge.jpg, Entrance lobby Interieur Evoluon.jpg, Interior in 1968 cmglee_Evoluon_interior_portrait.jpg, Interior in 2016

References

External links

{{commons category-inline, Evoluon
Official websiteExtensive site about the history of the EvoluonPhilips Technical Review 1970 5/6
-- article on The Evoluon at page 186 Convention centres in the Netherlands Defunct museums in the Netherlands Museums in Eindhoven Science museums in the Netherlands

See also

References

External links