Academy History and Mission

Founded in 1853 to survey and study the vast resources of California and beyond, the California Academy of Sciences is the oldest scientific institution in the West. Over the past 154 years, the Academy has grown to become the fourth largest natural history museum in the country. Home to Steinhart Aquarium, Morrison Planetarium, and the Kimball Natural History Museum, as well as world class research and education departments, the Academy's mission is to explore, explain, and protect the natural world.

In its early days, the Academy consisted of a group of naturalists who met weekly in a small Victorian office in San Francisco, where scientific papers were presented on topics of interest to a group of curious citizens. The fieldwork conducted by these naturalists generated a growing collection of research specimens, so a museum was opened on Market Street to display these scientific treasures. For 15 years, visitors streamed in to see the displays of birds, mammals, plants, skeletons, insects and natural curiosities, such as the extinct dodo and woolly mammoth. Then disaster struck; the fire and earthquake of 1906 left the museum in charred ruins. But even as the city burned, a two-year Academy expedition to the Galapagos Islands was gathering the material that would form the nucleus of the institution's new collections.

The Academy relocated to Golden Gate Park in 1916. Steinhart Aquarium, the most diverse aquarium in the world, was added in 1923. Over the next eight decades, five major exhibit halls as well as buildings for research were constructed to help further the Academy's mission to explore, explain, and protect the natural world. Morrison Planetarium was built in 1952, adding the entire universe to the scope of the Academy's educational mission. As the public museum grew, so did the research collections, which now include nearly 20 million invaluable specimens. Today, the Academy supports eight scientific research departments with more than 30 PhD-level scientists who conduct groundbreaking environmental research around the world.

Over time, the wear and tear caused by over 100 million visitors took its toll on the Academy's buildings in Golden Gate Park, and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake delivered a particularly powerful blow. In 2004, the Academy moved to a temporary facility in downtown San Francisco and began to rebuild its facilities in Golden Gate Park. The new museum, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano, is currently being constructed in the park. The design will ensure that the museum complex is seismically safe and will incorporate environmentally responsible construction technology, including recycled and renewable building materials, into an aesthetically accomplished master plan. The new Academy will be a physical and conceptual extension of its mission to explore, explain and protect the natural world.

While the Academy rebuilds, Academy scientists, staff, specimens, and live animals will reside at 875 Howard Street, a six-story building in downtown San Francisco. The first two floors are dedicated to exhibits and the top four floors hold research offices and collections. The new Academy will open in Golden Gate Park in late 2008.

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