Oceanário de Lisboa round #5 :: done
It was a massive job, but the Oceanário de Lisboa’s Southern Ocean’s exhibit, which underwent a massive renovation, is done!
Our fifth job in this impressive institution was one of our rare dry polishing jobs, which meant the team only had to get wet when polishing the wet side of the panel separating this remarkable exhibit from the even colossal 5 million litre Open Ocean tank, which is bordered by all 4 habitats in the building: Atlantic, Southern, Pacific and Indian oceans.
This innovative design by American Architect Peter Chermayeff allows visitors to look at the Penguin exhibit, while gazing at the Open Ocean behind it and, on a good day, they may even get a glimpse of the Indian ocean habitat on the far end of the building.
That basically means one can have Peruvian Magellanic penguins, South African sandtiger sharks and Maori wrasses all in the same frame, something that would never be possible in the wild.
But this was the vision of the Oceanário de Lisboa, which was themed on “One Ocean” when it opened on the 22nd of May 1998, as the centrepiece of the last World’s Fair of the XXth Century.
While engaging an audience of millions with the most spectacular underwater exhibit built to date, these visitors were shown how all oceans are indeed connected as one, their barriers being only of biological nature and not physical.
Twenty seven years after opening, the acrylic panels in the Southern Oceans habitat are now looking sharper than when they were new, thanks to our premium service and multiple grades of polishing materials, which rendered the panels so incredibly crisp that the staff had to cover them while the tank remains empty, for fear of people hitting their noses on these seemingly invisible panels!
