Oceanogràfic de València, Valencia

The Oceanogràfic is an aquarium where marine habitats from around the planet are brought together within the City of Arts and Sciences. Its sweeping concrete roofs belong to Félix Candela, not Santiago Calatrava, whose name is more broadly associated with the surrounding complex. Candela worked with structural engineers Alberto Domingo and Carlos Lázaro, and the building opened on 14 February 2003.

The scale is remarkable: it covers 110,000 square metres and contains 42,000,000 litres of water. The water sustains about 45,000 animals across 500 species. Among them are beluga whales, birds, reptiles and invertebrates, as well as dolphins, sharks, penguins and sea lions.

The habitats range from the Mediterranean and temperate seas to the Arctic, tropics and Red Sea, with a dolphinarium, wetlands and mangroves included in the wider complex. Look at the thin, shell-like roofs and the broad sheets of water around them. Their curved hyperbolic-paraboloid forms recall water lilies, shells and rays emerging from a lagoon.

The seawater arrives through pipes from La Malva-Rosa beach, and the largest tanks include a 26,000,000-litre dolphinarium and a 7,000,000-litre ocean tank containing sharks, rays and other fish. The architecture and the animals work together here: the buildings are designed to make the habitats feel like part of the landscape.