Planétarium de Reims

The Planétarium de Reims is France’s second-oldest planetarium, set in the city of Reims in the Marne département. The first small dome opened in 1980 inside a 17th-century Jesuit college on Place Museux. After thirty-three years it moved to a new elliptical building designed by Jean-Paul Bonnemaisson, finished in 2013. The structure stands on stilts like a launch platform, its glass-scaled skin glowing at night with projected star patterns. Inside, an eight-metre dome replaces the original six-metre room, seating forty-eight visitors plus two mobility places. The planetarium’s Zeiss ZKP4 projector, with optical fibres, reproduces the motions of the Moon, planets and 88 constellations. A multimedia system of three high-definition projectors fills the dome with images and video. The database can show the sky at any historical moment, including the night of the French Revolution in 1789. Over its life the old site welcomed an average of twenty-six thousand visitors each year, reaching half a million in total. The new hall keeps the same educational purpose for schoolchildren and the public. Visitors enter across footbridges that evoke spacecraft boarding. The air-conditioned dome offers comfortable seating and step-free access. Outside, the glass façade becomes a changing light canvas after dark. Inside, the scenographic space of nearly two hundred square metres prepares groups before the show. The combination of optical precision and multimedia spectacle makes every session an exploration of time and space.