National Aquarium

The aquarium began in the mid-1970s when then-mayor William Donald Schaefer, and the Commissioner of the city Department of Housing and Community Development, Robert C. Embry, inspired by a visit to the New England Aquarium on the waterfront of Boston, Massachusetts, conceived and championed the idea of an aquarium as a vital component of Baltimore's overall downtown and Inner Harbor redevelopment scheme. In 1976, Baltimore City residents supported the idea of an aquarium by voting for it on a bond loan referendum, and the groundbreaking for the facility took place on old Pier 3 facing East Pratt Street, just east of the newly completed World Trade Center in the city's Inner Harbor on August 8, 1978.

Although no federal funds were used for its construction, the United States Congress later designated the facility as the "national aquarium" in 1979. The aquarium opened to the public on August 8, 1981, after three years of construction, and one year after the booming festival marketplace of the two Harborplace shopping pavilions further west conceived by nationally famous, local developer James Rouse.

The National Aquarium, Baltimore's initial conceptual design, architecture and exhibit design was led by Peter Chermayeff of Peter Chermayeff LLC while he was at CambridgeSeven. The conceptual, architectural, and exhibit design for the Glass Pavilion expansion was led by Bobby C. Poole while at Chermayeff, Sollogub & Poole. After two decades, construction began on the Glass Pavilion north extension on September 5, 2002, and it opened to the public on December 16, 2005. It measures 64,500 sq ft (5,990 m2), and is 120 ft (37 m) high at the tallest point.

The National Aquarium was selected as the National Wildlife Federation's Maryland affiliate in 2011. The aquarium conducts conservation efforts through events to clean up the Chesapeake Bay Wetlands, and the aquarium's Marine Animal Rescue Program (MARP), which rescues, rehabilitates, and releases marine mammals. MARP has successfully rescued, treated, and returned seals, dolphins, porpoises, pilot whales, pygmy sperm whales, sea turtles, and a manatee to their natural habitats.

The National Aquarium Conservation Center (est. 2009) leads the aquarium's research efforts in resolving critical issues currently impacting coastal ecosystems and watersheds, ocean health, ecological aquaculture, and informs issues of environmental policy and advocacy through conservation research focused on aquatic ecosystems. Some of the center's projects include "The Chesapeake Bay Initiative", tracking mercury levels through the food chain in wild and captive bottlenose dolphins, and assessing chronic natural resource damages from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2011, The National Aquarium was honored with the Maryland Green Registry Leadership Award, as an organization that shows "a strong commitment to sustainable practices, measurable results, and continuous improvement" and was recognized by the Baltimore Business Journal and Smart CEO Magazine for exceptional green business practices in 2009.

A 4.3 MW solar farm in Cambridge supplies about 40% of the power for the National Aquarium, and saves about 1,300 metric tons of carbon dioxide during the summer. Energy efficiency upgrades in 2015 saved an additional 3,200 tons of CO2 over the summer.