The Ontario Science Centre opened on Sept. 26, 1969. It was a Friday. I was just shy of eight weeks old. So you can forgive my young self for later thinking it had been built expressly for me. Just a short bus ride away from my home in Scarborough, the Science Centre was a teacher, sometimes a babysitter and, in a weird way, even a friend.

Sure, school taught me the nuts and bolts of chemistry, physics, math. But the Science Centre delivered the wonder. It started with that incredible building, designed by renowned architect Raymond Moriyama, who died just last year, aged 93.