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Published on: 3rd of January 2012
Current city: Lisbon

In a country very much connected to water and the ocean I had several reasons to go to the Oceanário de Lisboa (Lisbon Oceanarium): as much diverse my Light World Tour has been I hadn´t covered yet lighting underwater and they have a new extension to house temporary exhibitions that I was keen to visit. Plus, I´ve been before and I never get tired of watching the fish swimming in their massive tank.

The oceanarium opened its doors at the 1998’ World Exhibition. It was once the biggest oceanarium in Europe and was designed by the American Peter Chermayeff, an architect with vast work in aquariums all around the world.
As for the new extension the architect was Pedro Campos Costa who I met once again and gave me a guided tour through the building and explained the concept behind this very interesting building. This new complex is now the new entrance to the Oceanário and is connected to the existing building by a suspension bridge. It is an irregular prism quite simple in form. As you get closer to the building façade you notice different reflections and colours as the natural light reflects in the ceramic panels which resemble fish scales.

As Pedro confesses even though the initial idea was to use these fish scales as a skin to the building, he was more interested on envisaging the natural light entering the building through these ceramic pieces, much inspired in the Arabian and traditional lattice work . We had lunch in the café where you can fully appreciate the sun patterned fish scales on the floor: the natural light is very inspiring indeed!

Pedro added that every time he comes here he always gets surprised as the building looks different. The light throughout the day always change its perception. On sunny days the lattice creates floor patterns but when the weather is overcast the variation is more dramatic on the external façade, in which the reflections become more intense. Also, the colours on the façade skin vary with the seasons and the sun´s orientation.

The new complex houses an auditorium and services for the public and as you go up the stairs towards the skylight you end up at the temporary exhibition hall. Currently a Turtle exhibit is taking place in this hall. Needless to say I was amazed with such animals and I learnt that turtles are actually very sensitive to light. Light pollution affects behavioural patterns especially when the eggs hatch and the baby turtles attracted by city lights make their way towards the wrong direction.

After we visited this, Pedro left me here and this was the beginning of my journey through underwater light at the main oceanarium building. The central tank in the core of building and the adjacent aquariums house five of the different ocean ecosystems in mother nature: Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Antarctic and Indian. In those environments I saw sea swallows, penguins and otters, the latter being one of the most famous attractions of this aquarium.

At the oceanarium I encountered fish of all colours and shapes, frogs, small reptiles, sea horses, jelly fishes, crustaceous and corals, and looking closer lighting actually changes from aquarium to aquarium to reveal in the best way these animals and their amazing colours. But what I liked the most was definitely the central tank. The tank is so cleverly designed that you can see it from different perspectives and heights that I easily spent two hours just watching manta rays, sharks and the moon fishes swimming side by side. 

I found it a fascinating environment! The bluish light is quite hypnotic and I felt so relaxed  it felt I was on another world. Looking at the shimmering fish playing under the rays of light, I guess I was!