Beacon Project: New Rhino Pagoda at Zoo Berlin

(eap) After a construction period of about two years, a new facility for armored rhinos was opened at Zoo Berlin at the end of last week with the Rhino Pagoda, which can be explored by visitors since 24 June. The swamp landscape, which covers an area of around 14,000 square meters, is designed to provide the animals with an environment as close to nature as possible, with numerous bathing pools, waterfalls, showers and mud hollows. The more than 2,000-square-meter building is designed to meet the high standards of modern animal husbandry. A total of four armored rhinos have found a new home here, along with Visayan warty pigs and tapirs. The centerpiece of the enclosure, which was built not far from the zoo’s Löwentor (Lion’s Gate) entrance, is a 25-meter-high tower with red concrete coloring that is supposed to resemble the Agra sandstone from the rhinos’ north Indian habitat. Inside the pagoda, zoo visitors can learn interesting facts about the native and natural habitat of the armored rhinos. The construction of the entire facility was supported with 15.4 million euros from funds for the “Joint Task for the Improvement of Regional Economic Structure” (GRW). The total investment volume of the project amounts to 23 million euros.

“The Rhino Pagoda is a significant step in our mission to advance species conversation and raise public awareness of the threatening loss of our biodiversity, using the example of the armored rhinos,” explains zoo and animal park director Dr Andreas Knieriem. He continues, “We want to secure their future in various ways: At Zoo Berlin, we are creating a safe environment for the animals and their offspring.At the same time, we want to create understanding for the threat and promote willingness to protect these and other endangered species.”

Architect Kieran Stanley, whose company dan pearlman Experience Architecture has been responsible for the object and open space planning of the project, is also proud of the result: “As a beacon for species conservation, the Rhino Pagoda is an architecturally complex and modern homage to the historic buildings of Berlin Zoo. In the new mixed-species facility, architecture, landscape architecture and didactics are holistically coordinated. We invite guests to become part of the recreated habitat of the animals so that they are reached by the didactically important messages on species conservation due to the spatial and emotional proximity to them,” Stanley states. ■