Shedd Aquarium
— — a Beaux-Arts rotunda around a coral reef.
Not only on a wall.
“The white marble building at the south end of Museum Campus, between the Field Museum and Adler Planetarium, on a peninsula that pushes out into Lake Michigan. The 1930 rotunda holds a 90,000-gallon Caribbean Reef tank you walk a full circle around. Behind it, the Oceanarium opens onto a wall of windows where the beluga pool meets the lake. The skyline sits framed in glass at the far end. from the studio
Shedd Aquarium, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The John G. Shedd Aquarium sits at the south end of Chicago's Museum Campus, on a small peninsula that pushes out into Lake Michigan beside the Field Museum and the Adler Planetarium. The building opened in 1930, funded by department-store executive John G. Shedd and designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White in a Beaux-Arts plan with a marble rotunda and a Greek-cross floor. The Oceanarium wing, designed by Lohan Associates, was added in 1991. About two million visitors come through in a typical year. The CTA Red, Orange, and Green lines stop at Roosevelt, a ten-minute walk north.
The Caribbean Reef sits at the center of the original rotunda — a 90,000-gallon circular tank you can walk a full loop around. It holds sharks, a green sea turtle, parrotfish, and a hand-fed community of reef species. The Oceanarium, behind the rotunda, holds about three million gallons across pools for Pacific white-sided dolphins, beluga whales, sea otters, and California sea lions. The far wall of the Oceanarium is a sheet of glass that lines the water up with Lake Michigan, so the indoor pool and the outdoor lake read as one surface.
The aquarium opens daily, generally 9am to 5pm, with extended summer hours. General admission runs roughly forty dollars for adults; the all-access pass that includes the 4-D theater and special exhibits is higher. Timed-entry tickets bought online avoid the long Roosevelt-side queue, particularly on summer weekends. Illinois residents get discount days through the year, posted on the Shedd's site. Plan two to three hours; longer if you catch an aquatic-presentation slot. The free Museum Campus trolley loops the three institutions in summer.