The Astronomy Museum is a branch of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum and will host a number of thematic exhibitions. But the building must not only be attractive with its contents inside, but also from the outside. It has no straight lines, angles or angles, but is curved and, when viewed from above, is thought to resemble, for example, the trajectories of cosmic bodies, whether planets or moons.

“We thought we could improve the whole experience with architectural design,” Thomas J. Wong, chief designer at Ennead Architects, which won a construction competition in 2014, told CNN. “The building was supposed to be the embodiment of astronomy-inspired architecture,” he added.

With spherical shapes, Wong’s team wanted to show that objects in space are always in motion and are driven by various forces. The edifice was then also affected by the so-called three-body problem, the unanswered mathematical question of how to calculate the motions of three stellar objects — planets, stars, and moons — depending on their mutual gravity.

The museum building is therefore imaginary divided into three bodies, each of which offers visitors something different. At the entrance to the institution, is the oculus, or eye, which lets light in and thus increases awareness of time. The second is a planetary theater with a giant ball that doesn’t touch the earth and seems to float – so space imitates a sphere. The last one is an inverted glass dome, where one can observe the open night sky.

“We want visitors to understand the unique nature of Earth as a place that hosts life and is completely different from other places we know of in outer space,” concluded Wong.