Layers of Growth and Decay

San Francisco's Exploratorium once occupied the Palace of Fine Arts, a grand but temporary structure from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Designed to be dismantled after the fair, the building persisted. In fact, it weathered decades of cumulative dilapidation and, remarkably, went on to host the Exploratorium for over 40 years. But while the Exploratorium blossomed inside its aging shell, the Palace itself apparently continued its decline, until the Exploratorium finally relocated in 2013, just two years shy of the building's centennial.

I've always been drawn to San Francisco's personality from afar, until this fall I finally experienced that novel charisma for myself alongside family and colleagues. The interplay of growth and decay is palpable throughout a city layered in rich history and innovation. That same relationship animates the Exploratorium's new form. Now settled in San Francisco's Piers 15 and 17, the science center hosts a lively juxtaposition of materials, processes, and states of change.

The San Francisco skyline from the Exploratorium's home today.

I'm deeply drawn to that relationship - as a mycophile, it feels almost second nature. Just as the city and its famed Exploratorium stack eras of history on top of one another, I'm always eager to find that very same layering enacted in the life of fungi. Fungi quietly perform the essential work of turning old into new, death into growth.

Back home in the Northwoods, my exploration of new mushroom habitat is often approached in one of two ways. Sometimes, like my daughter, I wander loosely through the terrain, open to anything that sparks curiosity. Other times, I find my journey entirely utilitarian - focused and driven by some amount of urgency.

My first visit to the Exploratorium was an echo of the latter. A half-day crash course in exhibit iteration necessitated that I quickly hunt through the expansive workshop for just the right materials to make our assigned interactive component function. My attention was fixed and I hardly absorbed the enormity of the interior. 

The following evening was different. I arrived to live percussionists, free-flowing libations, and rare freedom to roam over 1,000 participatory exhibits. I bounced around with our group, weaving between conversations and activities, letting the space open up around me. Then, tucked into a lush corner of the museum, I found home in the wonders of fungi on beautiful display. 

Fungi - including mushrooms and molds, colonize surfaces
throughout our beloved Northwoods as they build a future from the past.
These live molds are on display at the Exploratorium. 

Macrofungi - the highly visible mushrooms who colonize surfaces throughout our beloved Northwoods as they build a future from the past - are my north star. The Exploratorium's curated ecosystem felt intentionally placed to remind us visitors that decay is only a spark of new growth.

Standing there, admiring molds blooming in bright color, I was struck by how that small display captured feelings of home and of the Exploratorium's lifetime. We are always among layers of growth and decay.