RSS
|
|
|
The Tennessee Aquarium's River Journey and Ocean Journey buildings are home to more than 12,000 animals including fish, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, birds, penguins, butterflies and more. The original River Journey facility is organized around the theme of the Story of the River, following the path of a raindrop from high in the Appalachian Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 2/3 of the facility's display follows this theme, with the rest devoted to smaller aquatic exhibits hosting organisms from around the world. The self-guided tour takes visitors through three living forest exhibits that teem with life above and below the water’s surface. Along the way, visitors see thousands of animals like free-flying song birds, snapping turtles, sandbar and sand tiger sharks, stingrays, river otters, moray eels and colorful reef fish A new addition to the facility, Ocean Journey, opened in April 2005, ostensibly follows the theme of an River Journey, though with much less consistency than the original. However this facility does include more hands on displays, such as a large shark tank and ray touch tank, large macaws, a butterfly garden with South American species on constant display, as well as the very large ocean tank itself. Other visitor favorites include the Boneless Beauties gallery, where guests enjoy invertebrates like jellyfish, cuttlefish, giant Pacific octopuses and Japanese spider crabs. An even newer 16,000 gallon penguin exhibit, with ten Macaroni penguins and ten Gentoo penguins, opened May 3, 2007. The Tennessee Aquarium’s initial conceptual design, architecture and exhibit design (opened in 1992) was led by Peter Chermayeff of Peter Chermayeff LLC while at Cambridge Seven Associates, and the expansion’s conceptual design, architecture and exhibt design (opened in 2005) was led by Peter Chermayeff and Peter Sollogub and Bobby C. Poole at Chermayeff, Sollogub & Poole. |