Knoxville Aquarium

A Google Gemini rendering of an aquarium building. It reflects the prompt used: Create a photograph of an architecturally interesting aquarium building of about 150,000 square feet. The building should have an exterior with a lot of marble and glass. It is two stories tall. It has a patio on the roof and also some sedum. The building is sited in a park on a hill. The name of the building is the Knoxville Aquarium. We should be able to see fish tanks and similar structures through the windows. The aquarium focuses on freshwater fish from Tennessee. Bronze relief structures of freshwater animals are inset in the facade of the building. A diverse set of people are visiting the aquarium — Render of a Knoxville Aquarium

In April 2018, plans for a new science museum in Knoxville, Tennessee, were announced. It involved tearing down a law enforcement building and using the space for a science museum supported by a $150M private donation. Since then, the old building has been demolished and the site prepared, but as of Aug. 15, 2025, resources are instead going towards expansion of an existing popular science museum elsewhere in Knoxville. This leaves a site with a tremendous amount of potential: located close to downtown Knoxville, near various sports venues and other museums, having views of the Tennessee River and mountains, and with abundant parking. So what to do with this space?

This website presents a quick proposal: the Knoxville Aquarium. The website is just to popularize the idea: there is no organizational group fundraising for an aquarium, there are no discussions with city or county leadership, there are no hidden donors waiting to write checks (if you know any, though…).

Click on the menu above for pages on the potential exhibits, site, utility of the project, comparisons to other places, and about the background of the proposer.