Barcelona Aquarium

Brief information

The Barcelona Aquarium developed not as a standalone showcase for marine animals, but as part of the redevelopment of the Old Port after the 1992 Olympic Games. It is therefore important to read it together with its location: the former port district of Port Vell was transformed into a public, cultural, and tourist center, and the oceanarium became one of its key sites on Moll d'Espanya.

The complex’s main feature is its narrow specialization. It is devoted primarily to the nature of the Mediterranean Sea and is considered the world’s largest oceanarium of this kind. This changes the way the exhibition is viewed: what matters here is not simply scale, but the attempt to bring together different Mediterranean environments, from the coast to underwater grottos, and present them as a connected marine system.

What to notice first

It makes sense to compare three scales of display. First, there is the 80-meter transparent underwater tunnel with a moving walkway: it is designed so that marine animals can be seen from almost all sides, not just through a single plane of glass. Then there are 80 separate aquariums, where each type of flora and fauna is given its own environment. Within this logic, 14 ecosystems are presented: rocky and sandy coastline, thickets of algae, underwater caves and grottos, and coral reefs.

A separate detail is the mini-aquariums. They are needed not for scale, but for the opposite effect: seahorses, sponges, and microscopic fish can be examined under a magnifying glass. After the large tunnel, this section shows that the Mediterranean Sea is understood not only through large inhabitants and volumes of water, but also through small forms of life that would easily be lost in a large tank.