A Century of Zoo Design

Taronga Zoo is a much-loved recreational attraction of Sydney. Positioned on Sydney Harbour with spectacular views of the city, the zoological park is an iconic cultural landmark. The architectural development of Taronga Zoo over the past 100 years charts a unique perspective on the zoological park’s evolution.

Originally the project of the NSW Zoological Society, Taronga Zoo was officially founded in 1916 after the Society relocated its Moore Park Zoo, which it had outgrown, to a larger site on the harbour. There were 228 mammals, 552 birds and 64 reptiles transferred from Moore Park to Taronga. The project made headlines, particularly the transfer of Jessie the elephant. Jessie was walked (alongside two circus elephants to keep her calm) from Moore Park through the city, to the harbour and then shipped to Taronga Zoo on a barge; finally, she was winched onto the steep site via a crane. Her journey captured the imagination of Sydney and ceremoniously marked the transition to the new zoo.

The founders of Taronga Zoo, particularly the Director Albert le Souef, had seen the steep grade and natural sandstone terraces of the new site as a fantastic opportunity to embrace a different style of animal exhibition. Originating from Hagenbeck’s Tierpark in Germany, the style utilised a system of hidden moats to create a theatrical display of bar-less enclosures, staggered across a manufactured terrain carefully constructed to resemble the natural environment. The design was revolutionary because it presented zoo-goers with a series of spectacular panoramas in which predator and prey appear to harmoniously inhabit the same scene. The architectural design became influential worldwide because it redefined the parameters of what constituted a culturally acceptable vision of animals in captivity. Seeing well fed, healthy specimens exhibited as if at liberty in outdoor, open-air enclosures was considered a vast improvement than the traditional vision of animals in cramped cages and barred enclosures.

Taronga Zoo embraced these new design philosophies and the natural terrain leant itself to the installation of a series of open-air mock rock enclosures, nestled into the terraces. Mock rock was a method of construction that involved the application of ferro-cement over a sculpted arrangement of metal bars and galvanised mesh (chicken wire) create a rock-like appearance. It allowed the artificial terrain to blend somewhat into the existing landscape, creating the impression that the animals were exhibited in a natural setting.

By contrast, many of the buildings within Taronga Zoo were designed to stand out as architectural landmarks. The most recognizable, the main entrance, was designed in the elaborate Edwardian Baroque style with Beaux-Arts planning and featured a copper domed entranceway and ornate plaster decorations of flora and fauna. The Taronga Conservation Strategy suggests that the choice of this aesthetic spoke of: “the prevailing Zoo philosophy to amuse and entertain…”¹. Much of the zoo’s early design (1913 – 1914) has been attributed to architect and army officer, Colonel Alfred Spain of Spain and Cosh. The Public Works Department continued what Spain had begun, and in 1915 established the upper and lower entrances, administration offices, Indian temple, bear and carnivore pits and aviaries.

Taronga Zoo had a strong emphasis on recreation and leisure during the early years and the grounds included a range of very popular picnic areas. Several small “hot water shops” supplied picnickers with pies and sandwiches, and were so called because they also filled billies for tea. The early zoo also had a large Federation Arts and Crafts style refreshment room that was famous for its freshly baked scones and bread rolls. By the 1930s amusements at Taronga Zoo included a bandstand for live orchestral performances, a miniature train track, a merry-go-round, swings, a sandpit, a kindergarten petting zoo, and a circus arena to showcase performing animals. Elephant rides around the zoo were still very popular at this time and daily events included two orangutans, Freda and Freddie, “enjoying” a tea party. Recreational features such as these were very much in keeping with international zoo practices at the time.

By the 1940s, however, several of the moats surrounding the open-air enclosures were filled in and mesh barriers installed instead in order to allow people to get closer to the animals. This departure from the Hagenbeck style signaled a change in the architectural philosophy of the zoo. When Sir Edward Hallstrom took the helm in 1941 the zoo’s focus shifted to hygiene and cleanliness and many of the enclosures were redesigned in stark concrete to make them easier to clean and to better protect the animals from the elements.

Though these designs were more practical, the overall character was very stark and sterile, which did not fare well in a 1966 review completed by Heini Hediger, an international expert in animal psychology. He made a swathe of recommendations for improvement, the most controversial of which was that no major zoo should be run by one person, particularly one without zoological qualifications. Though Hallstrom, who had generously invested a large amount of personal funds into the zoo during his twenty-six year tenure, found this assessment particularly confronting, many of the recommendations were eventually accepted and implemented by the Trust.