Tianjin Zoo--China

Rhino and Elephant house


Occasionally there is talk of regulating the look of a zoo building or exhibit. What an insane, absurd idea that is. Why squelch, crush, stomp on, destroy the type of creativity we see above. Regulate the size, requirements, needs, that's a great idea. But don't regulate how the size, requirements, and needs should look. We are very fortunate to have Berthold Lubetkin's folly to look at and ponder today. It sucked for the animal yes, but their loss is our gain today in knowledge. I recall when the vogue started to be realistic, gunnite/shotcrete mountains surrounded by moats, each exhibit looked the same and you were supposed to pretend that you were in Africa, Asia, North America, South America etc. etc. Often times I would have to look at the guide book to remind myself what zoo I was at, because it looked the same as the one I was at last week, 500 miles away.