The Ozeaneum in Stralsund part 1

What may look at first glance like a scheme of a hadrosaur footprint – the poor animal has lost the terminal phalanx of the middle toe, though – is in fact the stylized outline of the Ozeaneum on the city plans helping tourists around Stralsund.

The Ozeaneum is the second large museum owned by the foundation Deutsches Meeresmuseum, and was opened in 2008. It supplements the old Meeresmuseum, the fantastic place with the enormous marine turtle aquarium I posted on before (and will post on again soon – promise!). but before I delve into the plethora of amazing exhibits at the Ozeaneum, here’s two impressions of Stralsund. Both are from HDR images, and I must admit that especially in the first case I do not mind the fact that the tree in the foreground moved between photos – it rather adds to the effect.

St.-Marienkirche.

Nikolaikirche (sorry, wikipedia in German only).

OK, on for the show now! Aove the fold I’ll simply put a single photo of the entrance area – you show your tickets at the base of the stairs and up you go, to start the tour at the top level (there is a lift for wheelchairs and strollers). And right above you there’s the first cool exhibit: the whale skeletons!

Cool, hu?

another view of the same one, this one shot from the moving glass-walled elevator:

Before I show you the rest of the whales, let’s go back outside and take a look a the somewhat odd modern architecture. Here is the entrance side of the Ozeaneum, seen through a bulls-eye of the windjammer Gorch Fock (1933, that is – oh, another upcoming post not on dinosaurs. Peter will hate me).

The glass wall at ground level houses the entrance area and a cafeteria, and from the right angle mirrors the Gorch Fock nicely. The motto on the wall is ambiguous: it can be translated as “Food is Life” or as “eating is living”. In any case, it fits the museum, too, as the marine food chain is so complex and important.

Inside, the museum has a nice scale replica of itself, which shows both the weird building shape and that it is surrounded by old harbour buildings. It doesn’t try to fit in in any way, rather, it is a white, smooth slap in the face. Somehow, this makes it not an eyesore, but rather pretty nice. The model is mainly intended for the blind, and my daughter was endlessly fascinated by the Braille lettering.

Obviously, I tried to photogrammetrize this, but the large white surfaces destined that attempt to failure. but now for the whales again.

Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus).

The other end. Because the Ozeaneum has this odd three-part structure, with the stairs and the glass-walled lift in between, there’s a lot of free air space, well lit through the glass walls and roof, for the whales to hang around in. And this means that you can get good views from many directions. Awesome! Compare to the RBINS whale hall – there, you get to see one side, have to kneel down for a belly view for most skeletons, and have practically no chance at a look from above.

Of the first skeleton shown above and the one below I have no clues as to what exactly they are. Baleens, that’s about as far as I get without labels. Sorry!

Overwhaled by now? You just wait for the last photos of the Ozeanuem I will post soon. In between there will be some fish and some other stuff, though.