Prague Planetarium’s Immense, Innovative LED Dome

Visitors to Prague can now enjoy a view of the universe, its stars, and its planets beneath a vast LED sky. Originally designed by Jaroslav Frágner in the 1950s, the city’s historic Planetum comprises a planetarium and the Štefánik and Ďáblice Observatories. The complex recently underwent a major renovation focused in particular on the planetarium. The work of Collcoll, the project upgraded this iconic structure, reinterpreting it through an innovative, contemporary lens to provide an immersive multimedia experience. The heart of the facility is a revolutionary hemispherical LED dome display with a diameter of 22 m. Engineered by Cosm with a resolution of approximately 45 million pixels, the display lets visitors experience phenomenal levels of color depth and realism.

Aimed at highlighting the beauty and wonder of the night sky, the renovation also involved reconfiguring the seating, which now has a tiered, semicircular configuration that optimizes the sightlines, breadth, and continuity of the image. The custom seating accommodates 277 viewers – 20% more than its previous capacity. Contributing to the experience is the dome’s audio system, which creates the illusion of infinite space. Like the other building systems, it was installed with the utmost respect for the existing structure.

The project also involved landscaping the site and renovating the foyer, replacing the former exhibition at the entrance with an additional LED screen. The design team paid particular attention to thermal comfort, planning the layout according to geographic orientation. In addition, the heat generated by the LED dome display is stored during summer in six 200 m wells.

These upgrades have positioned the Prague Planetarium at the forefront of space education internationally, offering visitors a unique visual experience of the cosmos.