The California Academy of Sciences officially opened its doors to the public on Saturday and the response was incredible. The morning's opening ceremony featured speeches from architect Renzo Piano (who actually shouted "Mamma Mia!"), Mayor Gavin Newsom, and the release of 150 monarch butterflies. It seems like half the city came out to see the groundbreaking new building, with thousands of people waiting in a line that stretched over a mile long. The consensus is already in: familes love it, critics love it, everyone loves it. In a startlingly optimistic review that reads almost like a Barack Obama speech, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff hailed its synthesis of classical proportions and Modernist methods, calling the new museum "a blazingly uncynical embrace of the Enlightenment values of truth and reason." Yes We Can. Missed the action this weekend? Check out the photos that have started to trickle in to the Curbed SF Flickr pool this weekend while you wait for the next free-entry day on October 15th.
· Mile-long line for Academy of Sciences opening [SF Gate]
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