Miraikan is back — and in the context of post-March 11 Japan, public expectations for the museum, whose mission is to bring cutting-edge science and technology closer to the public, are greater than ever.
Miraikan (the National Museum for Emerging Science and Innovation) reopened Saturday after a three-month closure. The popular museum, located in Tokyo's Odaiba waterfront district, had to close in the aftermath of the March 11 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, because the tremor caused plaster boards, which covered the ceiling inside the glass-walled, six-story atrium of the building, to come off and shatter into pieces on the ground floor — despite the fact the building's design had met government anti-quake regulations. (All visitors and staff were evacuated safely out of the building before the ceiling collapsed.)
The incident was a humbling lesson on the fragility of human inventions and technologies — just as the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster have been. But the museum staff quickly adapted and turned the event into an exhibit.