Nestled between UTSG and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) sits a curious dome-shaped structure once known as the McLaughlin Planetarium. A planetarium is a building that projects the night sky — the stars, moons, and planets — inside a dome, where the space is kept dark so they shine bright. The theatre space allows its audience to see the sky from anywhere and at any time.
Indigenous cultures worldwide have been star-gazing for centuries and would often do so for navigation, timekeeping, farming, and spiritual and religious practice. Thus, planetariums are an important cultural stakeholder as they create an immersive and educational experience around astronomy.
Tracing the Planetarium’s origins
In 1968, the then-president of General Motors Canada, R.S. McLaughlin, founded the planetarium, donating two million dollars toward its construction. The building looked to the stars using cutting-edge technology—including a mechanical Zeiss planetarium projector—to display stars, planets, and cosmology — the study of the universe by connecting theoretical models with observable effects. This requires mapping the stars and galaxies.
The Zeiss planetarium projector featured 150 individual projectors dedicated to the Sun, planets, stars, moons, comets, and the Northern Lights. The new and improved technology constituted azimuth rotation and a fourth axis, which expanded the display to simulate spaceflight experiences and other astronomical phenomena. Beyond this, the building itself had 198 displays providing introductions to astronomy and preparatory information for the light show.
A fantastic magic
For over 25 years, the planetarium invited guests to marvel at the wonders of space. It showed stories of space travel, constellations, myth, and astrology, as well as special features during the winter holidays. Some examples include The Story of Eclipses, a show about our solar eclipses, how they happen, how often they happen, what they look like, and their scientific significance. Another story, The Planet Venus, demonstrated several aspects of Venus, including its occurrence in Roman mythology as the deity of love and beauty, what the planet looks like in rotation, and surface predictions of Venus.
The building had an exhibition space, a library, a lecture room, workshops, a lens grinding facility, and a theatre, which sat 361 people each show. The planetarium attracted many visitors, including University of North Carolina at Charlotte architecture professor Jeff Balmer, who grew up in Toronto.
In an interview with Global News, Balmer said, “It was magical. It was fantastic… coming into the theatre space and seeing all the rings of chairs and [I remember] just being blown away by what I saw on the ceiling and just the whole universe opened up to me.”
A call to change
In 1995, despite its popularity and profitability, the then-newly elected premier, Mike Harris, aimed to symbolically cut the ROM’s budget. As part of his “Common Sense Revolution” against Ontario’s significant budget deficit at the time, Harris sought immediate and visible reductions in government expenditure. These provincial budget cuts unfortunately led to the closure of the McLaughlin Planetarium.
Although the building no longer exists as a planetarium, it still functions as an office space and storage facility for academic and institutional purposes for U of T and the ROM. While echoes of its former life remain, it’s hard not to reminisce about these spaces that once celebrated astronomy.
While the McLaughlin Planetarium is closed, Canadian planetariums — including the W.J. McCallion Planetarium in Hamilton, the Planétarium Rio Tinto Alcan in Montréal, and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) Planetarium in Burnaby — remain open. Furthermore, the Worldwide Planetariums Database’s archival images of the McLaughlin Planetarium show the construction of the building, the Zeiss projector, and some behind-the-scenes photography of the theatre. The City of Toronto Archives also highlights historical photography, such as an exhibition space showing the moon and its lunar phases.
Beloved landmarks with rich historic legacies, such as the McLaughlin Planetarium, deserve our attention and preservation. Through them, we’re offered opportunities to inspire future generations, educate young minds, and showcase the wonders of the cosmos. As a testament to this, Balmer started a petition in 2017 to preserve the McLaughlin Planetarium since its closing. The City of Toronto and the GTA thrive the most when we honour and celebrate these institutions that connect us to the stars.
