Baltimore National Aquarium
Name of Building
Baltimore National Aquarium
Town or City, Country where the building was originally established
Baltimore City, Maryland, United States
Date the building was designed and/or first built
Opened (August 8th, 1981)
Name of Architect, Builder, or Primary Patron Responsible
Peter Chermayeff (Architect)
Bobby Poole (Architect)
Culturally Specific Time Period
Modern
Geo-Location
39.285428846133584, -76.60839234807789
Architectural Type
Public
Building Description
The National Aquarium in Baltimore is made up of a series of square, rectangular, oval and pyramidal shapes. The building's exterior is mainly stone grey and navy blue. There are also decolored rectangles above the aquarium's entrance that bear resemblance to a few different types of naval flags.
Upon entering vistors are greeted with a small waterfall leading into a freshwater tank containing salmonids. As you go through the building you eventually reach an open area with a open water filled enclosure below and five levels above and a small sub-floor below for viewing the blacktip reef enclosure. Each floor focuses on a specific environment or theme. The floor at the very top is a contained by the pyramid glass roof mentioned earlier and houses a greenhouse-like rainforest section. Afterwards visitors would pass down a spiraling slope that displays an Atlantic coral reef exhibit on the upper levels and a shark tank on the lower levels. This leads the vistor back to the starting part near the blacktip reef.
Upon entering vistors are greeted with a small waterfall leading into a freshwater tank containing salmonids. As you go through the building you eventually reach an open area with a open water filled enclosure below and five levels above and a small sub-floor below for viewing the blacktip reef enclosure. Each floor focuses on a specific environment or theme. The floor at the very top is a contained by the pyramid glass roof mentioned earlier and houses a greenhouse-like rainforest section. Afterwards visitors would pass down a spiraling slope that displays an Atlantic coral reef exhibit on the upper levels and a shark tank on the lower levels. This leads the vistor back to the starting part near the blacktip reef.
Image source
Image 1: National_Aquarium_in_Baltimore (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/National_Aquarium_in_Baltimore.JPG)
Image 2: BaltimoreNationalAquarium (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/BaltimoreNationalAquarium.JPG)
Image 3: National_Aquarium_Baltimore_2024b (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/National_Aquarium_Baltimore_2024b.jpg)
Creative Commons or other copyright information
Image 1: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
Image 2: Public Domain
Image 3: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
Bibliographic references for the item
1. https://aqua.org/assets/documents/National-Aquarium-Guide-Map.pdf
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20160305080328/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2001-08-12/entertainment/0108120321_1_pier-3-glass-aquarium
3. https://aqua.org/about
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20160305080328/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2001-08-12/entertainment/0108120321_1_pier-3-glass-aquarium
3. https://aqua.org/about
Citation
Peter Chermayeff (Architect) and Bobby Poole (Architect), “Baltimore National Aquarium,” World Architecture, accessed June 28, 2026, https://worldarchitecture.artinterp2.org/items/show/126.
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