Phaeno

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  • Address
    Willy Brandt-Platz 1, city centre, 38440
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  • Phone
    0180 106 0600
  • Website

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Lonely Planet review

The glass-and-concrete building that houses the science centre Phaeno is truly cutting edge. Sleek, curved and thin, it looks like a stretchy spaceship from Planet Minimalism. Inside, however, you rarely have time to appreciate the design by British-based Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. The place is full of 250 hands-on physics exhibits and experiments (with instructions and explanations in both German and English) and, frequently it seems, 10 times as many schoolchildren all pulling at them.

You can wind up your own rocket, check your eyes by looking at bunnies, build an arched polystyrene bridge, watch thermal images of your body - and so on and so on. Indeed, the place is quite physically, as well as mentally, absorbing, so it helps to set yourself some time or other limits.