A new environmental and cultural facility centred on the largest planetarium in the French Alps opened this week in Valberg, a mountain resort in the Alpes-Maritimes, with the inauguration on Tuesday 16th June coinciding with the second national congress of France’s International Starlight Reserves.
The Maison Départementale de l’Environnement et de l’Observation — known as DOME — was designed by Wilmotte & Associés and is the result of a project launched in 2020 by the Alpes-Maritimes department in partnership with the Syndicat Mixte de Valberg and the Communauté de Communes Alpes d’Azur. The 1,800-square-metre facility, which opened to the public in April, brings together a planetarium, cinema, library, multimedia room, Mercantour national park house and event spaces under one roof.
The planetarium
The centrepiece of the building is a 12-metre immersive dome — the largest planetarium in any mountain resort and the largest in south-east France. Equipped with five 4K video projectors and near-reclining seating for 54, it can accommodate up to 100 people standing. Eight astronomy programmes of around 45 minutes each are on offer in its first year, covering topics from asteroid exploration to the Voyager space probe, alongside screenings aimed at younger visitors. The dome can also host concerts, dance performances and digital art projections.
The structure’s distinctive silver exterior is formed from 16 palladium-coated steel petals, each weighing one tonne and measuring around 16 metres in length. They were transported by convoy from Vannes in Brittany — a journey of over 1,000 kilometres — before being installed on site. The palladium coating covers 560 square metres and provides long-term weather resistance.
A congress on the night sky
The inauguration opened a three-day congress — the 2nd national gathering of France’s Réserves Internationales de Ciel Étoilé, or International Starlight Reserves — which ran until Thursday 18th June. More than 200 professionals attended, including elected officials, CNRS researchers, lighting specialists and representatives from all seven French starlight reserves as well as international delegations from Canada and the United Kingdom.
The Alpes Azur Mercantour reserve, which received its label from Dark Sky International in 2019, became France’s largest international starlight reserve on 19th June following the integration of 17 new communes, bringing it to 92 communes, 3,700 square kilometres and more than 70,000 inhabitants. More than 3,000 stars are visible to the naked eye within its boundaries.
The facility in full
Beyond the planetarium, DOME includes the Cinéma le Dahut, a 228-seat cinema and events space that had been closed for two years during construction, a 300-square-metre departmental library with a specialist mountain collection of over 20,000 titles, and a 180-square-metre Mercantour national park house with an outdoor educational garden. The reception hall spans 430 square metres and includes two permanent exhibitions on the natural and cultural heritage of the territory. The facility expects to welcome 50,000 visitors per year and has created nine permanent jobs.
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