The Oceanografic is one of the most emblematic places here in Valencia. I wanted to talk about it because it was inaugurated the same year I was born.

The Oceanografic is an oceanarium situated on the dry Turia River bed to the southeast of the city center of Valencia, Spain, where different marine habitats are represented. It was designed by the architect Félix Candela and the structural engineers Alberto Domingo and Carlos Lázaro. It is integrated inside the cultural complex known as the Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences) and was opened on 14 February 2003.

In it you can see the dolphinarium and a 7,000,000-litre ocean tank with sharks, rays and other fish. It is home to 45,000 animals from 500 different species—including sharks, penguins, dolphins, sea lions, walruses, beluga whales, birds, reptiles and invertebrate—all inhabiting nine two-tiered underwater towers representing the Earth’s major ecosystems.

THE DESIGN

The steel-fiber reinforced concrete thin-shell structure was designed by renown architect Félix Candela, at age 87 in 1997, and structural engineers Alberto Domingo and Carlos Lázaro. The distinctive hyperbolic parabola (hypars) shape of the roof is reminiscent of the Los Manantiales Restaurant in Mexico City, which Candela designed in 1958.

MY EXPERIENCE

I went there many times as a baby but I obviously don’t remember it. I also went every year with my summer school.

However the last two times I went were this year. Once with my friends Clara and Alicia and then with my friends of bachillerato. It was free for the people born in 2003 because it was its 18th birthday. When I went with my friends of bachillerato we actually met with some of our classmates so we spend the rest of the visit toghether. I had so much fun this day and it was one of the best this year. We saw the dolphinarium performance and visited the entire oceanografic. We took a lot of pictures and talked and learned a lot of things about our classmates. It was defenetly a day to remember.

Fun fact, the people we met with are currenlty friends with us and we have a group and get along very well.

Although I had a very good time, I thought about how unhappy these animals might be closed up in tanks instead of free in the sea. I thought about it th entire day and I don’t think I will go there again. When we went in to see the penguins, it was very sad how little space they had, and the background was (obviously) fake. When I was younger I didn’t think about this, all the times I went with my summer school. However now that I’m older and more concious about this stuff, I didn’t feel completely right there.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Oceanogr%C3%A0fic