National Aquarium in Baltimore - History

History

The aquarium began in the mid-1970s when then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer and the Commissioner of Housing and Community Development, Robert C. Embry, conceived and championed the idea of an aquarium as a vital component of Baltimore’s overall Inner Harbor redevelopment scheme. In 1976, Baltimore City residents supported the aquarium by voting for it on a bond referendum, and the groundbreaking for the facility took place on Pier 3 in the city’s Inner Harbor on August 8, 1978.

Although no federal funds were used for its construction, the United States Congress designated the facility as the "national aquarium" in 1979. The aquarium opened to the public on August 8, 1981, after three years of construction.

The National Aquarium, Baltimore’s initial conceptual design, architecture and exhibit design was led by Peter Chermayeff of Peter Chermayeff LLC while he was at Cambridge Seven Associates. It measures 115,000 square feet and holds more than 1 million gallons of water.

The conceptual, architectural, and exhibit design for the Glass Pavilion expansion was led by Bobby C. Poole while at Chermayeff, Sollogub & Poole. Construction began on the Glass Pavilion on September 5, 2002, and it opened to the public on December 16, 2005. It measures 64,500 square feet, and is 120 feet high at the tallest point.