Aquarium Exhibit Lets Visitors Experience Life Under the Ocean

By Nicole Wallace

The fish came before the architects at the new Georgia Aquarium, which opened in Atlanta in November.

At most new facilities, architectural companies are selected first, and the scientists and aquarium

administrators are hired later, says Jeff Swanagan, the organization’s executive director.

Not so in Atlanta. When Bernard Marcus, a co-founder of Home Depot, decided that he wanted to build an aquarium — Mr. Marcus provided $250-million of the $290-million it cost to create the facility — the first person he hired was Mr. Swanagan, who has spent his career working at zoos and aquariums.

Together the two men visited 55 aquariums in 13 countries over the course of three months.

“We listened and listened and listened,” says Mr. Swanagan. “Everybody told us really good ideas. Some people told us what not to do and what to do.”

Most aquariums, he says, are designed in a way that encourages visitors to follow the same path through the exhibits. To give visitors to the Georgia Aquarium more choices, Mr. Swanagan says, he and Mr. Marcus decided on a “horizontal design,” in which the aquarium’s main galleries all lead to a central hall.

In the Ocean Voyager exhibit, visitors move through a 100-foot-long underwater tunnel where they are surrounded by the marine life of the Meso American Barrier Reef of Central America. Whale sharks — the largest fish in the world — squadrons of stingrays, and hammerhead sharks swim in an ocean habitat with six million gallons of saltwater.

Visitors can choose to go through the tunnel on a mechanized walkway.

Says Mr. Swanagan: “It allows them to go through the tunnel, stand still, and gawk with their jaw open in awe without worrying about tripping and falling or running into somebody.”