Despite over a million people visiting The Blue Planet in its first year of existence, northern Europe’s largest aquarium is already planning to renovate.
The aquarium, which celebrates its one-year anniversary today, has allocated 12.5 million kroner for the project after 20 percent of visitors in a Megafon survey said they were dissatisfied with the current set-up.
“To be honest, it hasn’t been good enough," Mette Broksø Thygesen, the commercial head of the Blue Planet, told Politiken newspaper.
"The professional competency is fine, but the form, methods, mechanics and electronics haven’t functioned well enough. We are changing it all.”
The aquarium has picked Atelier Brückner to help it renovate. The German design and exhibition firm's work at the BMW Museum in Munich is widely acclaimed, and it recently set up the ‘Vikings’ exhibition currently on display at the British Museum.
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New expansions too
The Blue Planet has said that it wants visitors to have more clarity about which area of the aquarium they are standing in, whether it is the Amazon, Pacific Ocean or North Sea area. Overall, the visitors will enjoy a less stationary and more organic experience.
The renovation will start at the end of 2014 and is expected to be ready for use sometime by the middle of 2015.
Despite its issues, The Blue Planet attracted 1.3 million visitors during its first year, which places it in the top four most visited attractions in Denmark – behind Tivoli, Bakken and Legoland, but just ahead of Copenhagen Zoo.
Aside from the renovations, the aquarium is also planning possible expansions, which are expected to be ready in 2017 or 2018.
