BioMuseo, a 13,124 square feet exhibition space and botanical park, has been commissioned to highlight Panama's natural wonders and its role as a geological bridge between two continents. Designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, the Biomuseo is his only work in Latin America and the tropics.
With its vivid appearance, BioMuseo has become a familiar sight to ships using the Canal's eastern gateway and to people using the nearby Bridge of Americas that connects to an offshore archipelago.
The Biomuseo’s permanent exhibition is titled Panama: Bridge of Life. Eight galleries and eight "devices of wonder" tell about the origin of the Panamanian isthmus and its gigantic impact on the planet’s biodiversity. These galleries were conceived by Canadian designer Bruce Mau, founder of the Institute Without Boundaries.
There is an incredible abundance and variety of life on Earth. The visitor is greeted with a huge multicolored stained glass, fourteen meters long and eight meters high, representing the explosion of life in Panama.
Panamarama
We live surrounded by a vast amount of living beings and communities. A three-story projection space with ten screens will immerse the visitor in an audiovisual rendering of the natural marvels that compose all of Panama’s ecosystems.
Building the Bridge
Panama is a living bridge that emerged from the sea three million years ago. The tectonic forces inside the Earth that formed the isthmus are represented by three rock formations, fourteen-feet high, in a space full of tactile and physical encounters with the geological world.
Worlds Collide
The closure of the isthmus of Panama generated a great exchange of species between North and South America, two land masses that had been separated for 70 million years. The visitor is received by two animal stampedes representing the megafauna that began this unique journey almost three million years ago.
The Human Path
Human beings are an integral part of nature. In a partially open-air space, sixteen columns provide information on the relations between human activity and nature in Panama 15,000 years ago, the estimated date when the first settlers arrived to the isthmus, to the present.
Oceans Divided
When Panama emerged, two very different oceans were formed, changing life all over the planet. Two 10-meter high, semi-cylindrical aquariums will show how the Pacific and the Caribbean evolved in drastically different ways after being separated by the creation of the isthmus.
The Living Web
To demonstrate how living things need and compete with each other in complex and often invisible ways, a huge sculpture (equal parts plant, animal, insect, and microorganism) will immerse the visitor in a dimension where all living things are just as important.
Panama is the Museum
The biggest wonders await the visitor outside the museum. Panels and displays show the relations between Panama's biodiversity and the world, and offer access to a virtual network linking the museum with the rest of the country.
The BioPark
The Park of Biodiversity will be a living extension of the museum’s architecture, exhibits, and programs. An oasis with diverse experiences: shade and refuge, a safe place to observe nature, a place to learn, and a place to celebrate.
A selection of endemic and native plants will continue to tell the stories that began on the central exhibition’s route. Each plant will be chosen for its natural beauty, its adaptability to the site and the story it tells us, whether it's about Panama's biodiversity, its food, housing, symbiotic relations, fruits or flowers.
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