Visitor Center Visitor Center Our visitor center, located in the Mesa Laboratory, includes exhibits, art galleries, and a gift shop. The interactive displays, some designed at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, are always popular with children.
Art galleries highlight the work of local artists and change monthly.
Our gift shop features books, educational toys, apparel and other souvenirs. The Educational Resource Center includes science materials for childern and adults. The Mesa Lab was designed by architect I.M.Pei and is set high above Boulder against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The laboratory is a striking, futuristic structure, but its design was influenced by the ancient Indian cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. It was Pei's intention to create a building that would harmonize with its dramatic backdrop, the soaring rock formations called the Flatirons.