The architecture in the zoo is almost as important as the animals. With two grade 1 listed buildings and 8 grade 2 the zoo has a lot to say without the animals at all.
The penguin pool is a feat of modernist architect Berthold Lubektin, introducing to Britain a brand new style of building becoming playful and interesting. It sadly lies empty today but it demonstrates the zoos openess to new designs.
The clock tower was a commissioned design by George IV to Decimus Burton. It once housed Llamas but was soon considered too small for animals and was converted into shops. It has since become a feature of the zoo as a meeting point.
The girraffe house building is utterly functional and still serves its purposes. The doors are 16’ (5m) in height and 21’ (6.5m) at the eaves. Giraffes can be as tall as four-and-half metres so the scale of the building’s proportions is a direct response to the height of its residents. There are many fine examples of architecture in the Zoo, but few have remained for their original inhabitants.
In 1835, the Society arranged the capture of one female and three males and giraffes have occupied Burton’s house ever since.
The Mappin Terraces are an extraordinary imitation of a mountain landscape was designed to provide a naturalistic habitat for bears and other animals. Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell, whose inspiration it was, was the Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1903-35. The construction of the terraces showed what could be done with reinforced concrete, which was then a comparatively new material. The cavernous interior, like that of a real mountain, holds reservoirs of water which is filtered and circulted into the Aquarium below. The Mappin Terraces houses sloth bears and Hanuman langurs.
