Exploring the Underwater World

On the beautiful blue Danube

Vienna's Schönbrunn Zoo, the oldest zoo in the world and rich in tradition, now offers yet another attraction for visitors. In a new outdoor complex, designed to approximate natural conditions as closely as possible, visitors can experience the entire indigenous aquatic life of Austria - all thanks to PLEXIGLAS®. From the clear waters of the Alpensee to the blue Danube, you can stand eyeball to eyeball with brown trout and sturgeon. The feeling of being right at the center of the action is made possible by twelve-meter square concave PLEXIGLAS® sheets.

Better than glass

Where glass comes up against its technical limits, the special properties of PLEXIGLAS® allow visitors a glimpse under the water surface: The novel plastic can be produced in slabs thick enough to easily withstand water pressures of the order of tons. Furthermore, the PLEXIGLAS® block material can be bent by heating and even fashioned as a tunnel element, with no loss of optical quality. Visitors to the zoo therefore get a completely undistorted view through the plastic and experience the fascinating aquatic fauna at very close quarters without getting their feet wet. And this pleasure is available for the long term: We provide a 30-year guarantee for the excellent product properties of PLEXIGLAS®, which, in contrast to conventional plastics, never yellows.

Fascinating views

In the Schönbrunn aquarium, the curved panels convey the impression of a cross-section of a lake. Other fascinating underwater sights are also possible with PLEXIGLAS®. In the Gelsenkirchen Zoo, for example, visitors to the Alaska area can admire - from underneath - sea lions swimming and diving in 1.8 million liters of water in a nine-meter long tunnel made from PLEXIGLAS®.