Ozeaneum is an architecturally dramatic extension containing 39 huge fish tanks to the existing Oceanography Museum in Stralsund, an old-world town on the Baltic Coast.

Just two-and-a-half hours’ drive north-west of Berlin, visitors can discover what is going on in a mysterious world that makes up 70 percent of our planet’s surface. Life on Earth began in the oceans, which remain a vast source of food for fish, sea mammals and people.

Harald Benke, director of the Oceanography Museum, says, “We still don’t even know about many species of creature in the deep oceans.”

Only 2.4 square kilometers of the deeps have ever been properly surveyed, using submarine probes. Statistically that is so little that it barely even counts as a sample of the whole surface worldwide.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who represents voters from the coastal region in the Bundestag parliament, is scheduled to attend the inauguration Friday of the biggest purpose-built museum to open in Germany this year, with visitors to be admitted from Saturday

The old museum occupies a former church. The 60-million-euro (US$95 million) extension could not be more different, comprising four rounded, steel-clad buildings joined by a glass foyer.

Although the structure nestles between ancient port warehouses and the whole town center is a UNESCO world heritage site, UNESCO has approve the modern-style Ozeaneum as an enrichment.

An architecture office from the German city of Stuttgart, Behnisch & Partner, designed the oval and kidney-shaped buildings, which vaguely give the impression of giant rocks rubbed smooth by glaciers.

The tanks inside focus on different undersea environments of the world’s colder seas, including the port basin of Stralsund complete with underwater rubbish such as a rusting discarded bicycle.

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