Monterey Bay Aquarium

Located on the site of a former sardine cannery in Monterey, California, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is the second largest aquarium in the world. It has an annual attendance of 1.8 million and holds 35,000 plants and animals representing 550 species.

Rudolph and Sletten built the museum in the early 1980’s and then added a wing to the building in the 90’s. Construction began with a 400 feet long seawall, using reinforced steel with epoxy coating and cement with calcium nitrate additive to prevent rust. The building exterior was restored to closely match the old cannery warehouse building.

The centerpiece of the Ocean's Edge wing is a 33-foot (10-m) high tank for viewing California coastal marine life. In this tank, the aquarium was the first in the world to grow live California Giant Kelp using a wave machine at the top of the tank allowing sunlight in through the open tank top, and pumping in raw seawater.

The installation of the Seawater Intake System to supply seawater for all the tanks, involved two 16-inch polyethylene plastic pipes some 1,300 lineal feet long from the pumphouse into the bay. They are anchored in concrete to the ocean floor at a depth of 70 feet. Each pipe has a design flow of 2,000 gallons per minute.

Construction of the two giant main tanks involved the use of custom-made acrylic panels which are five to eight inches thick. The walls of the Kelp, Monterey and Otter tanks are 40 large acrylic windows. Two of the larger window panels are 7 1/14" thick. The largest single panel which is in the Kelp Tank is 20 feet by 8 feet with a thickness of 5 1/2 inches.

The German-design circular tanks with no corners, known as kreisels, provide an especially good home for the delicate creatures that might injure themselves in a tank with corners.

Construction of the 49 spread footings and columns support the Level 1 decks projecting out beyond the new seawall required 164 foundation drill piers 18 to 36 inches in diameter. These were drilled down to granite bedrock to support the Aquarium building and to anchor it against earthquakes.

A unique feature of the project was the ceramic tile work in the public bathrooms, main staircase, and Portola Cafe. Quarried and shipped from Mozambique, the natural quartzite rock tile cover over 40,000 square feet of public areas.

In 1996, Rudolph and Sletten doubled the exhibit space with the construction of the Outer Bay Wing, devoted to the open ocean and deep sea, featuring a one-million-gallon tank containing tuna, sharks and sea turtles.