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Then, in 1989, came yet another earthquake. Although damage to the Academy was minimal, with only the North American Bird Hall put out of commission, repercussions from the Loma Prieta earthquake ultimately led to the new building.

A bond measure to repair the Steinhart Aquarium was passed in 1995, but with plans still on the table and the money not yet spent, Mayor Willie Brown suggested another bond issue to cover all the other structural problems. The two propositions together, plus funds from a state bond to improve parks and cultural institutions, would total $130 million. People began to dream.

Even before city voters passed the second proposition, the Academy’s Board of Trustees was writing to some of the world’s major architects to ask if they would be interested in the opportunity to create a new building. They were, and six of them came a-calling. Immediately, one stood out above the rest. While most arrived with provisional plans, when Renzo Piano came into the boardroom, “the first thing he did,” says Patrick Kociolek, executive director at the time, “was to take the chairs out of the rows and rearrange them in a circle. Then, after everyone was sat down, he asked: ‘What do you want?’”

They wanted it beautiful, they wanted it green, they wanted it exciting. What they wanted was a building that exemplified the mission of the Academy--to explore, explain, and (recently added) protect--the natural world. Finally, conservation, which had been conspicuously absent from the Academy’s stated goals, was a byword.

Although the Steinhart has been overshadowed in recent years by the better-funded Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA), it is still the grande dame, the oldest grand municipal aquarium. While the mission of the MBA is to focus on the life in Monterey Bay and its nearby deepwater canyon, the Steinhart displays marine life from all over the world. Like the MBA, it has a history of extraordinary innovation: the “roundabout” that provided a viable home for pelagic fish that can’t survive in tanks with impeding walls; breeding programs that helped sustain rare species of seahorses and the winter-run Chinook salmon; a healthy, live coral reef exhibit; and some of the first solar collectors to warm tropical fish tanks. In its new iteration, it will rival every aquarium in the nation.

The imposing columns at the entrance to the new Steinhart capture the essence of the old structure, at the same geographical point. Behind these columns and the arching vault they support is a rebuilt swamp exhibit with seahorse railings, where slow-moving alligators (including an albino) again reside. These familiar features have been recreated much as they were, in homage to history or, in Piano’s words, “the memory.” Anyone who visited the old aquarium will immediately feel at home.

But there any resemblance to the old Steinhart ends. Like an octopus with outstretched tentacles, the aquarium--that is, all the live exhibits--reaches out to every corner of the new museum, and occupies half the public space. When you descend the stairs adjacent to the swamp, those familiar with the old Steinhart are in “for an enormous surprise,” says Chris Andrews, the aquarium’s director. You immediately enter the 5,000-square-foot Water Planet exhibit, with over 100 tanks, none of them rectilinear. There are more than 900 species throughout the building, and many of them are here--leafy sea dragons, Gila monsters, jellyfish, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates. The theme, “Water Is Life,” considers the importance of water to all life, and what it takes to live in and around water, hot or cold, salt or fresh. How do the animals breathe, feed, reproduce, hide, communicate? Once an hour, the lights dim, and a movie on the importance of water is projected on the walls.

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