In April 2014 Parc Zoologique de Paris was reopened after a six-year development period. The park is divided into five ‘ecosystems’, with species sharing enclosures where possible. The giant, vertical boulder, the manmade ‘Grand Rocher’, is the only part of the original site to remain after the refurbishment. Parc Zoologique’s manmade rocks and landscaping act ‘as a trompe l’oeil’ to mask the captivity of the animals. Rothfels proposes that advanced replications of nature in zoos mean that the animals contained within ‘face a much more...

Alone in Barcelona, I went to the city’s zoo. I saw half of a dolphin show narrated in Spanish, in a tiny pool, and watched other visitors irritate the animals. One man poked a monkey in the face with a twig to impress the girl he was with. She laughed and drew closer to him. In the centre of the zoo was a pebble-dashed concrete mountain, with paths winding up and around the structure. A peacock displayed his feathers to nobody, blocking the way.

Elephants are once exotic and familiar: they can be trained to give rides, perform and interact with people closely due to their mental capabilities. Originally London Zoo housed their elephants in a whimsical cottage, and much later, in 1939, elephants were kept in Lubetkin’s relatively tiny Gorilla House. Before the practice was stopped in the early 1960s, elephants were exercised through giving rides to visitors. It was believed that ‘[a]n unreliable elephant is a most unproductive investment for any Zoological society’. A new home was...

Prior to having a ‘Bear Mountain’ on which to display its bears, The Zoological Society of London initially housed them in a stone pit, reminiscent of a bear-baiting arena. Depictions of London Zoo’s old pit often show the bear gripping a tall post, being fed buns on the end of walking sticks. However, in 1902 the pit was condemned as a ‘relic of the Middle Ages’ and it was demolished soon afterwards, as was the polar bear exhibit: ‘perhaps the least credible’ in the zoo....

Berthold Lubetkin and his architecture firm Tecton were commissioned to design a pool for London Zoo’s penguins in 1934. Their earlier commission resulted in a white, circular Gorilla House. Modernist design was a move toward a ‘biotechnic age’, yet Gruffudd notes that these buildings were the result of new ideas about nature and ‘experiments in harmonizing living creatures and their designed spaces’ through rational scientific enquiry. The penguin commission gave Lubetkin chance to showcase modernist design to the masses: he saw architecture as a statement...

People are separated from nature through building material culture in the form of the city, which excludes uncontrollable natural elements in order to maintain itself. The urban environment is like a house of cards, susceptible to degeneration when plants, animals and weather systems interact with its material structure in unforeseen ways. Parks and woodlands are designated as ‘safe’ nature, while nature defined as weeds or infestations threaten the city habitant’s sense of dwelling. Yet, within the middle-ground of gardens and hedgerows, plants and animals possess...