Ocean at Home : An Illustrated History of the Aquarium

144 Pages·2011·5.56 MB·English

Bernd Brunner
The Ocean at Home
An Illustrated History of the Aquarium
Princeton Architectural Press, New York
First published in English in 2005 by
Princeton Architectural Press
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New York, New York 10003
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First published in German in 2003 by transit Buchverlag
Copyright © 2003 transit Buchverlag
08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1 First edition
Printed and bound in China
For the present edition both text and illustrations of the original
German version have been considerably expanded and adjusted.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
without written permission from the publisher, except in the
context of reviews. Every reasonable attempt has been made to
identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected
in subsequent editions.
For Princeton Architectural Press:
Project editor: Nicola Bednarek
Copy editor: Scott Tennent
Layout: Linda Lee, based on the design by Gudrun Fröba, transit
Buchverlag
Translation: Ashley Marc Slapp
Special thanks to: Nettie Aljian, Janet Behning, Megan Carey,
Penny (Yuen Pik) Chu, Russell Fernandez, Jan Haux, Clare
Jacobson, Mark Lamster, Nancy Eklund Later, Linda Lee,
Katharine Myers, Molly Nash Rouzie, Lauren Nelson, Jane
Sheinman, Scott Tennent, Jennifer Thompson, Joseph Weston,
and Deb Wood of Princeton Architectural Press
—Kevin C. Lippert, publisher
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brunner, Bernd, 1964–
[Wie das Meer nach Hause kam. English]
The ocean at home : an illustrated history of the aquarium /
Bernd Brunner.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-56898-502-9 (alk. paper)
1. Aquariums—History. I. Title.
SF457.3.B78 2005
639.34’2—dc22
2004027647
Contents
7Dive In 7
11The First Seed 9
The Secret of the Ocean
19The Second Seed 17
Chambers, Cabinets, Cases
23The Third Seed 21
Pet Fish
26“Passion and Diligence” 25
Pioneers
39“A Strong, Intensive Desire” 38
The Propagandist
62From Salt to Freshwater Aquarium 59
The Lake in a Glass
78Arriving in the United States 68
Aquarist Societies and Magazines
87Exotic Species and Transport 78
Diverging Beliefs
99Fashion Show 86
Typology of Parlor Aquariums
119“A New Kind of Theater” 99
The Large Aquariums
125The Aquarium as a Dream 121
133Appendix 133
133Acknowledgments 133
133Selected Bibliography 135
133Illustration Credits 139
133A Selection of Aquariums and Oceanariums 141
133About the Author 143

“There are ideas that dream.”
—Gaston Bachelard
Dive In
The first-time visitor to an aquarium strolls around
searching and contemplating; you can tell by his facial
expression that he cannot contain his inner excite-
ment. His curiosity is so great that he can hardly enjoy
the moment; I am sorry, but he looks so helpless, as if
he has suddenly found himself among people whose
language he neither speaks nor understands.
It is almost impossible for today’s aquarium visitors
to fully comprehend these words by the German doc-
tor and natural scientist Gustav Jäger, who in 1860
built one of mainland Europe’s first public saltwater
aquariums in Vienna. We should not underestimate
our current knowledge of the submarine world: we
have seen the movies by Jacques Cousteau and his
numerous imitators, tried to find “Nemo,” visited
aquariums from an early age, and might have even
gone snorkeling and diving in the Caribbean or in the
Red Sea.
But in 1850 the picture was very different. Knowl-
edge of the ocean was mainly from hearsay, rarely from
one’s own experience. At a time when one’s image of
the animal kingdom was almost entirely dominated
by land animals, a unique invention known as the
aquarium brought the ocean into the home. People
were confronted with a strange new world filled
with amazing creatures and exciting new life-forms.
7
The question of whether sea anemones or corals are
animals or plants must have been a popular debate
amongst the curious visitors to Jäger’s aquarium, who
“visibly struggled and fought with their conventional
beliefs.” Observing visitors to the aquarium, Jäger
noted further:
Occasionally, when the guide happened to be absent,
I have witnessed cases in which educated individuals,
after longer periods of moving from one tank to the
next, walked out and asked the ticket officer angrily:
‘What in heaven’s name am I actually supposed to see
in there?’
The unknown provoked feelings of both curiosity
and apprehension. While visitors were searching for
a new experience, they were also afraid of what they
might discover. They fought it, not willing to believe
or understand what appeared before their eyes. Jäger
had to use all his pedagogical skills to explain the
wondrous life-forms in the tanks. His efforts ulti-
mately paid off, and he was able to observe “how at
first the visitors started to understand, and how this
then gave way to amazement, finally resulting in
warm admiration.”
Today, it is easy to take the aquarium for granted,
but one must wonder how awesome it must have
been 150 years ago to peer through a window into a
truly alien world. How did such an invention come
to be? This fascinating idea of simulating, gazing at,
and observing the exotic world of the ocean in an arti-
ficial environment did not simply develop from one
day to the next, but required a very specific will to
comprehend, as well as the appropriate materials and
techniques. This book attempts to show and exam-
ine the evolution of the aquarium, from the different
historical precursors to today’s public and private dis-
plays, and to give an insight into the mindset of the
scientists, inventors, and obsessive enthusiasts who
recreated the ocean in their homes.
8
The First Seed
The Secret of the Ocean
The aquarium has a lot in common with the menag-
erie, the forerunner of the modern-day zoo. But in
contrast to animals in a zoo, where words like “tame”
and “domesticated” can often be heard, marine crea-
tures are instinctively shy. While the keeping and
displaying of animals from around the globe may ful-
fill a wish to capture a sense of the wild, the invention
and subsequent expansion of the aquarium was born
out of a desire to discover and explore the mysteries
of the ocean. This interest, however, did not emerge
until the eighteenth century; until then the ocean
had been taboo, a place of great fear.
For centuries, scientists inspired by ancient myths
and sailors’ yarns had helped to stoke those fears.
The ocean was considered the source of life but also
a place of ill omen, death, and mayhem—a cursed,
dark world where terrifying monsters lurked, devour-
ing anything in sight.
Over time, however, this bleak picture began to
change. Although nineteenth-century artists still
painted shipwrecks and the fear of drowning was still
common, naturalists and authors showed an increas-
ing interest in the ocean. The coast had also been
embraced as a vacation destination. Reports about
the healing powers of salt water and the fresh ocean
9
breeze helped create new seaside resorts, first in Great
Britain and later in continental Europe and the east-
ern United States. Thanks to the newly completed
railroad systems, these resorts could now be reached
in a matter of hours. This easier access coupled with
the public’s changing perceptions played a major role
in increasing the ocean’s popularity.
While the coasts and surfaces of the oceans were
being explored more and more, the deep sea still kept
its secrets for some time. Attempts to shed light on
the ocean’s murky depths failed for many years due
to technical shortcomings, and research in the early
nineteenth century remained focused on physical
and chemical analyses, such as gauging the water’s
temperature, salt content, and density, as well as
attempts to understand the principles of wave for-
mation. Around 1830 scientific interest in this area
declined, and many researchers turned to other
This construction burgeoning fields such as meteorology and geomag-
made of leather
netism. Biologists, on the other hand, began head-
and metal is
one of the first ing out to sea more intensively to collect and study
documented marine life. Invertebrate creatures such as sea anem-
diving helmets,
ones, sponges, corals, worms, jellyfish, and crabs were
seventeeth
century particularly fascinating, as these life-forms played an
important role in the development of A forerunner of
modern diving
the theory of evolution.
suits at the
Up until the middle of the nine- beginning of
teenth century, the physique, shape, the nineteenth
century
and appearance of many marine ani-
mals had still been an enigma. The
popular assumption was that nothing
could exist in the cold and dark abyss
of the deep sea. In 1844 an anonymous
author wrote in the book The Ocean: a
Description of the Wonders and Impor-
tant Products of the Sea:
Heavy bodies, which will sink rapidly
from the surface, do at length apparently
10