Haus des Meeres – Aqua Terra Zoo

In the 1960s, the bunker’s underground section was utilized as a youth hostel called Stadtherberge Esterhazypark.

In November 1957, volunteers moved into the flak tower. The firemen then occupied the ground level and bunkers, leaving only one and a half usable storeys for the show. The remainder of the tower was covered with rubble and exposed to the elements. The aquarium grew over the unoccupied floors in stages. The firefighters eventually departed the buildings when the aquarium grew to six storeys, and the aquarium personnel was finally permitted to clean the basement of war remnants.

The building was capped in 1991 with a lightweight wraparound box bearing the motto Smashed to Pieces. Lawrence Weiner’s tribute to war and Nazism, In the Still of the Night (in English and German). It eventually proved an impediment to the growth plans. The municipal officials debated whether Weiner’s work was a throwaway billboard or a piece of artistic history, but by 2005, the latter side had won, and the city assumed responsibility for its upkeep. The ancient elevator, which was erected in 1944, worked well until 1997. It was replaced as part of a major refurbishment that allowed three new levels (7, 8 and 9) to open. The reptiles and tropical birds are housed in glass wings that were added in 2000 and 2007. The skyscraper has ten inhabited above-ground stories and an open tourist top deck as of 2010.The tenth story, which recreates a flak turm control vault, includes World War II artifacts and is only viewable on weekends, with visitors registering in advance. The enlargement had an unintended consequence: the City of Vienna removed the “defaced” tower from the list of protected sites while requiring the retention of Weiner’s billboard.

The Haus des Meeres erected its largest shark tank, a 300,000 L (79,000 US gal) tank, in 2007. The aquarium relocated six adult blacktip reef sharks to the new tank on May 7. All sharks perished gently after a few hours of waking. An autopsy indicated deadly internal hemorrhage caused by stress (after the tragedy, other zoos proved that blacktip sharks are certainly susceptible to stress damage). The four replacement sharks of the same species sent next month survived with no long-term consequences.The gravel that lines the tank’s bottom was recovered from World War II concrete that was demolished during the enlargement. It may be seen on the Austrian Post’s 55 cent commemorative stamp 50 Jahre “Haus des Meeres” published in 2007.

The global financial crisis resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of visitors to Viennese art institutions. The Haus des Meeres, on the other hand, has seen an increase in visitors year after year: 258 thousand in 2007, 336 thousand in 2008, and 353 thousand in 2009. Despite a large rise in admission price, it ascended to tenth place in the list of Vienna’s tourist attractions rated by ticket sales in 2009.