Aquarium

Aquarium of Genoa is the largest aquarium in Italy. This educational and entertaining center is placed not far from an old harbor on a Ponte Spinola cape.

It was built to the 500th anniversary of America discovery by a notable citizen of Genoa, navigator Christopher Columbus. That year the world-famous exhibition Genoa Expo ‘92 took place in this Italian city. 

The first concept of Aquarium was to show the visitors the marine way through which Columbus reached America. These were northern areas of the Atlantic Ocean, Ligurian and Caribbean seas. The creators tended to illustrate the sea views of Columbus times. The second concept was to attract community attention to the ecological problems in the world Ocean. 

Renzo Piano, the Genoese architect worked on a facade of a building. His idea was to create an Oceanarium looking like a ship that goes down underwater. 

Architects and designers from England worked on the decoration of the Aquarium and expositional areas.

In 1998 the building was renovated: constructors joined the first corpus-ship with a new one by a corridor.

Aquarium of Genoa consists of 70 aquariums. Each of them is a unique ecosystem that is inhabited by specific kinds of the deep sea.

The oceanarium area presents species of different climate zones. Here you will see various examples of invertebrates, fishes, and amphibians. Among the inhabitants, visitors can also meet sharks, caimans, penguins, dolphins. Every aquarium is interesting to look not only because of the different species' plenty. People can find out what the Ocean floor is, which corals, reefs, and seaweed exist in various sea zones. The volume of Genoa Aquarium is, by the way, 6 million liters of water.