PRESS RELEASE
05.09.2012
DARWINEUM: Evolution of life
ATELIER BRÜCKNER designs museum experience in Rostock zoo
Zoo and museum: The DARWINEUM in Rostock is a combination of museum and living zoological collection and, as such, is currently unique throughout Europe. Opened on 8 September 2012, it has 20,000 square metres of floor space, where science, adventure and ecological education are all brought together in one place.
Designed by ATELIER BRÜCKNER, the permanent exhibition starts with Darwin's evolution theory and takes the visitor on a journey through the millions of years of the earth's history. The highly varied, interactively presented tour illustrates the evolution of life and the cultural evolution of human beings. A special exhibition area is dedicated to each of the two themes. Embedded in between them is a spacious tropical house – the new attractive home inhabited by the apes of Rostock zoo.
The evolution of life is presented in eight cabinets that are radially arranged around a central stage which expresses the idea of a "primordial cell". The cabinets allow chronological access to the earth's geological eras. Step by step, they visualise biological evolution with the help of dioramas, stage-managed media settings and live images: aquariums, paludariums and terrariums house animals that possess characteristics of our ancestors or demonstrate corresponding stages of evolution – up to and including the mammals.
Starting with the first use of tools by human beings, the theme of cultural evolution rounds off the exhibition tour. It finds expression in a space-forming forest of rods which increasingly thins out to assume a clearly defined structure. It takes the visitor to a stem-cell laboratory that contains aquariums and models and reflects the current state of genetic research. In the end, cultural evolution now enables intervention in biological evolution.
The DARWINEUM is one of the new attractions of northern Germany: idyllically situated in the oldest and largest zoo near the Baltic Sea, it is a new type of museum that is instructive and conveys knowledge in an entertaining manner.
CONTACT
ATELIER BRÜCKNER GmbH
Claudia Luxbacher
Press and Public Relations
T. +49 711 5000 77 126
F. +49 711 5000 77 22
presse(at)atelier-brueckner.com
ZOO Rostock
Danielle Zimmermann
Direction Marketing
T. +49 381 20 82 184
presse(at)zoo-rostock.de
www.zoo-rostock.de