Zoo Architecture - Bigger is Better?

[snowleopard]

There are many countries in the world that do not yet comprehend the meaning of "landscape immersion". Perhaps the best examples of that designing technique are at the Bronx Zoo, Woodland Park Zoo and Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum...but I could name nations where many of the zoo enclosures are very basic fences and wire contraptions and there is zero sense of immersion whatsoever.

 

[Jurek7]

will exhibits like Budongo and the new Elephant exhibits at LA and San Diego be seen as animal prisons?

I think Budongo will not hold for more than few years, because of its very artificial architecture. These heaps of poles and ropes remind me of some demolished building site. In a few years they start to rot and the place will look really terrible.

San Diego elephant area will not hold either. One, the concept of elephant mixed with tapirs, pronghorn etc. as a proxy of extinct megafauna is too stretched. Second, it is barren and empty. Third, it is smallish, (although improvement over the previous one).

On the other hand, some exhibits 'hold' nicely after decades. London zoo's rocks will still look interesting in future (when they remove this red dirt). The same with Berlin zoo's lion paddock dating from 1938 or Wroclaw zoo's baboon rocks coming from something like 1920's and Hagenbeck's African panorama from 1907.