Phaeno Science Centre

Hands-on science museum in a Zaha Hadid concrete-and-steel landmark

The Phaeno is one of the most striking buildings in Germany: a sculpted concrete hull that floats above the ground on a forest of angular pillars. Zaha Hadid designed it specifically to act as a gateway between the station and the Autostadt, and the long ramp underneath has become a kind of de facto public square.

Inside, the centre is a busy hands-on science museum aimed at children but rewarding for adults too. Some 350 experiments are scattered across the open interior — magnetism, fluid dynamics, optics, acoustics, mechanical contraptions. The combination of the building and its contents is unusually good, even for Germany.

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Zaha Hadid's only completed building in Germany, the Phaeno hovers on ten massive concrete cones above the open ground next to the station. The form is partly a piece of urban camouflage — the lifted underside lets the city's main pedestrian route slide unchanged beneath it.