Word: aquarium
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With its forest of steel masts, miles of cable rigging and giant, sail-shaped glass roof, the new aquarium that opened in Lisbon last week looks like a futuristic ship preparing for exploration. That's as it should be: The aquarium, the largest in Europe, is the centerpiece of Expo '98, a world's fair dedicated to "The Oceans" and timed to celebrate Vasco da Gama's historic voyage from Lisbon to India--via the Cape of Good Hope--500 years ago. But Lisbon's newest tourist attraction is also a symbol of a growing public interest in underwater zoos...
Thanks largely to Chermayeff's passion and innovative eye, big-city aquariums are more popular than ever. His sparkling creations in Boston; Baltimore, Md.; Osaka; and Chattanooga, Tenn., have revitalized stagnant waterfronts and are pulling in huge crowds. The Genoa Aquarium, created with architect Renzo Piano, is Italy's fourth most popular tourist attraction and is drawing more visitors each year than the Uffizi...
...distinguished company, Lisbon's Oceans Pavilion stands out. Its titanic 1.2 million-gal. central tank and four side tanks (holding an additional 300,000 gal.) are home to 8,000 specimens of 250 species, arranged so that predators and prey seem to swim side by side. Visitors to the aquarium set off on a grand, circumnavigable tour around the world's oceans, past sharks, bluefish, wreckfish and more. Along the way they pass through naturalistic-looking coastal exhibits that represent four major littoral ecologies: rocky North Atlantic cliffs with cavorting razorbills and murres; subpolar grassy banks populated by nesting Magellanic...
...aquarium's thin and fragile glass bounds offer convenient and helpful protection. The Harvard Aquarium must stand still, no matter what happens outside...
...days in the aquarium are coming to an end. Soon, there won't be glass walls anymore. After four years in here, I can see many baits on hooks--energetic fishermen trying to take me back to the vast ocean where I once swam. The only question now is which bait to bite...