House of the Sea
| House of the Sea | ||
|---|---|---|
| motto | Aqua Terra Zoo | |
| particularities | Located in a flak tower | |
| place | Fritz-Grünbaum-Platz 1 1060 Vienna |
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| surface | 5000 m² | |
| opening | 1957 | |
| Individuals | 10,000 animals | |
| Species focus | sea animals | |
| Visitor numbers | 642,459 (2018) | |
| organization | ||
| management | Michael Mitic (Director), Hans Köppen (Managing Director) | |
| Sponsorship | Non-profit private foundation: Board members Gerhard Herndl, Andreas Papez, Franz Six | |
| Funding organizations | Association of Friends of the House of the Sea: President Evelyn Kolar | |
| Member of | WAZA , EAZA , OZO , EUAC | |
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| www.haus-des-meeres.at | ||
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Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 51.6 ″ N , 16 ° 21 ′ 10.4 ″ E
The Haus des Meeres is one of three zoos in Vienna , along with the Schönbrunn zoo and the Lainzer zoo . The facility, which consists mainly of marine aquariums and terrariums, is located in Vienna's 6th district , Mariahilf .
General information
The House of the Sea shows more than 10,000 animals on more than 5000 m². The main focus of the zoo is on keeping animals in aquariums, preferably from the Mediterranean Sea and from tropical freshwater and seawater habitats, such as piranhas , sea turtles and corals . With over 640,000 visitors in 2018, the house was able to announce a record for the twelfth time in a row. This makes it one of the most visited sights in the city of Vienna .
The offer is complemented by a terrarium department and a tropical house with birds , flying foxes and monkeys (including common marmosets ), which are not separated from visitors by bars or glass panes. In Krokipark above the entrance hall crocodiles, turtles, fish, monkeys and birds can be seen. Most recently, a hammerhead ray tank was opened on the newly accessible 10th floor and an Amazon passage on the 9th floor. From the 9th to the 10th floor there is the small flak museum, which was built and expanded inside according to the motto remembering .
The House of the Sea is a private initiative. The non-profit organization has had no subsidies from the City of Vienna since 2010.
history
A special feature of the Haus des Meeres is its accommodation in a former flak tower from the Second World War in Esterházypark .
When the Society for Marine Biology was founded on November 26, 1957 (President was Fritz Hartel, Vice President Viktor Otte), the goal was already set by scientists and businesspeople to create a "House of the Sea" in the former Flakturm Esterházypark, the first seawater aquarium in Austria, to establish. This facility should also be developed into a center for European marine research . Rupert Riedl and Ferdinand Starmühlner took over the scientific management .
By 1965, the first one and a half floors of the building had been adapted and 40 show basins were set up, with the panes of discarded trams from Vienna also being used in the first few years . On May 24, 1973, Franz Six, who has been volunteering since the restart in 1965, changed the name of the association to Haus des Meeres - Vivarium Wien , which should better reflect the actual field of activity as it now presented itself.
In the following decades, one after the other, additional floors were opened up, the building services were renewed and the animal population expanded. In 1991, during the Wiener Festwochen, the widely visible inscription Smashed to pieces in the still of the night was created by the American artist Lawrence Weiner ; it was intended as a temporary word sculpture in public space. The inscription was covered in the course of the expansion of the Haus des Meeres after long discussions with Weiner's approval in 2019.
In cooperation with Kurt Kolar, who later became Vice Director of the Schönbrunn Zoo , the vivarium was expanded in 1992 to include a quarantine station for confiscated and abandoned reptiles, which still exists today.
On January 23, 1997, after two years of construction, the new shark and turtle tank was opened, with a system volume of over 120,000 liters, at that time one of the largest seawater aquariums in Europe. Since 1998 all floors of the building have been accessible again with an elevator, also barrier-free, after the old elevator, which had not been functional since the end of the war, was replaced.
For the appropriate keeping of giant snakes , iguanas , monitor lizards , agamas , mambas and other reptiles and on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the exhibition, several large terrariums were presented to the public on June 30, 1999.
The most noticeable extension of the vivarium, the tropical house on the west facade, was opened on September 7, 2000 after a year of construction. This construction, which is similar to a winter garden with glass walls, offers visitors the opportunity to see free-flying birds, flying foxes , free-range marmosets , turtles and the like. a. observed in a tropical climate and contributed significantly to a new record of 180,000 visitors in one year.
A section dedicated to native fish species was opened on May 22, 2002. The number of visitors increased continuously, and the Haus des Meeres, certified as a zoo according to European guidelines since 2003, counted more than 250,000 visits for the first time in 2004. In the same year the sixth building level was opened with an aquaterrarium for horseshoe crabs . Since April 2007 it has been possible for visitors to the house to enter the leading platform. On May 7, 2007, after delays due to technical problems, the Hans & Lotte Hass Shark Basin , the largest aquarium basin in Austria, was opened. The basin, dedicated to the diver and marine researcher Hans Hass and his wife Lotte Hass , holds 300,000 liters and, after six sharks died during the relocation, houses a carpet shark and a white tip reef shark , several black tip reef sharks , an Atlantic green turtle ( Chelonia mydas ) and various other marine fish.
In 2009, in a survey in the district, a majority for an increase in the restaurant was in favor. Since July 2010, the zoo's visitor area has extended over all nine floors and the roof terrace.
In the summer of 2013 a further expansion was completed, in the course of which a new basin for the hammerhead sharks was built. On the upper floors there are 22 panels on the history of the flak towers as well as the permanent exhibition Remembering Inside , which - housed in the former command room of the control tower - deals with the historical and technical function of the building.
On July 1, 2015, the Vienna City Council decided on an agreement that had been negotiated for years to sell the flak tower, which was only handed over by the federal government to the City of Vienna in 2000, to the zoo's operating association for a symbolic euro. It was easier for them to get a loan to invest in their own property, the city waived EUR 5,300 monthly rent and in return saved the maintenance. The park and climbing wall remained generally accessible. A clause stating that the city has a right of repurchase if the zoo's use ends, prevents any other commercial use.
The association is planning to set up external lifts to relieve the internal lift and also to enable access to the roof café without a zoo ticket. On September 9, 2015, the groundbreaking ceremony took place for the “Atlantic Tunnel”, a giant basin with more than half a million liters of salt water. The visitors are given the opportunity to “dive” through the aquarium in a glass tube almost 15 meters long, hanging freely in the water and weighing more than 15 tons. The establishment was financed by the non-profit private foundation through the Betriebs GmbH from its own funds. The Atlantic Tunnel was opened on December 15, 2016. It is likely to be unique in the world, as the well-known aquarium houses only built tunnels with a solid base. This largest aquarium in Austria holds 520,000 liters and was dedicated to long-standing board member Jörg Ott.
For the expansion of the entrance hall including two additional lifts, expansion of the cloakroom and creation of pram parking spaces, the preliminary examination procedure was submitted to MA 37 on December 23, 2016. The specialist departments partially contributed to the creation of the plans and did not raise any objections. The extension was started on July 5, 2017 and should be completed by 2020. The financing is secured and takes place without tax money or subsidies.
On February 28, 2018, the Mediterranean department, which was completely redesigned for a construction cost of € 400,000, was reopened. Salt water had corroded the steel reinforcement of the ceiling below, which is why the nine new aquariums (each with a capacity of 150 liters to 15 cubic meters) are now attached to the walls. They show jellyfish, anemones, fish, sharks and seahorses from the Viennese "house sea".
At the beginning of 2018 it was announced that by the beginning of 2020 a glass extension would be built in front of the entrance facade of the Haus des Meeres for around 10 million euros. This should add 3,000 square meters of usable space, the above-mentioned Lawrence Weiner lettering was painted over. In the course of these renovations, a photovoltaic system made up of 202 modules was installed. The electricity from the system will primarily be used for the Haus des Meeres itself.
photos
Hans & Lotte Hass shark tank
Whitetip reef shark
Carpet anemone
Coral anemones
Atlantic tunnel
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c The HDM Story Homepage Haus des Meeres, accessed on September 10, 2015.
- ↑ a b 12th visitor record for Haus des Meeres orf.at, 12th January 2018, accessed on 12th January 2018.
- ↑ Review 2017 and preview. Homepage Haus des Meeres, accessed on January 14, 2018.
- ↑ Haus des Meeres: 1957: Austria's first sea water aquarium
- ^ House of the Sea: 1999: Jungle Department
- ↑ see: Zoopresseschau of May 10, 2007 ( Memento of the original of May 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ City of Vienna Mariahilferinnen for the restaurant at the Flakturm, town hall correspondence of April 30, 2009
- ↑ House of the Sea - Dach aktuell
- ↑ House of the Sea buys a flak tower. ORF.at, May 28, 2015.
- ^ House of the Sea - Aqua Terra Zoo - News. In: haus-des-meeres.at. July 5, 2018, accessed July 16, 2018 .
- ↑ Mediterranean feeling in the Haus des Meeres orf.at, February 28, 2018, accessed February 28, 2018.
- ↑ orf.at: House of the Sea: Overpainting of the lettering fix . Article dated March 26, 2018, accessed March 26, 2018.
- ↑ orf.at: "House of the Sea" is being expanded . Article of January 31, 2018, accessed on March 26, 2018.
- ↑ Solar roof for Haus des Meeres a3Bau on October 30, 2019
Web links
- House of the Sea
- House of the Sea in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna