Zoological Garden Jihlava

 
In 1824, in the picturesque valley of the Jihlávka River, a very popular tourist destination began to emerge below the town walls – a new town park called Little Heulos (Malý Heulos), which still bears this name today. After 1945, this picturesque part of the town was renamed Březinovy sady and it was here that the Jihlava mini zoo was established in 1957 on the initiative of several local enthusiasts. The end of 1967 brought the arrival of the new director Vladislav Jiroušek as well as the first development study for the mini zoo. In 1982, the mini zoo was granted the status of a zoological garden. The functionally obsolete facilities underwent extensive renovation. The use of natural materials, especially wood and stone, became more prominent. Bars and metal meshes were gradually replaced by glass and natural enclosures and Jihlava Zoo soon became a "zoo without bars".

Major development and associated extensive construction changes in Jihlava Zoo took place after 2003. The creative models for the architectural design of the African village of Matongo, a complex of ten huts and several small buildings, were the huts and sheds of indigenous tribes in western Zimbabwe. The buildings added previously-lacking facilities, such as refreshment shops and toilets for visitors. At the same time, a wooden observation tower with a unique stainless steel slide – a twelve-metre long spiral chute – was built. In 2005, a completely new entrance building was erected on the south-eastern side of the premises, extending the zoo towards the south-east onto the undeveloped area of the former orchard. Architecturally, the entrance building is based on the building art of ancient times using so-called Neolithic technology. It contains an information centre, ticket office, refreshment shop, and toilets. At the same time, a highly visible "advertising totem" was erected on Brněnská Street, showing visitors the way to the newly located central car park and the new entrance to the zoo. Likewise, the old entrance building from the Little Heulos (Malý Heulos) Forest Park also underwent structural changes.

From 2007–2009, the construction of the new Malay Medan bear pit for sun bears on the site of the original brown bear enclosure, which had existed there since the late 1950s, relocated the inadequate enclosure to a new site in the lower part of the zoo so that visitors could interact with the animals more easily. The bear pit consists of an inverted amphitheatre and a plateau with an open cave, water features, and a waterfall. The inauguration of the newly renovated small Amazon pavilion Hacienda Escondido took place in May 2011. The architectural design of the exterior structural changes is based on the characteristic elements of a gated community in the South American countryside. A new outdoor staircase leads to a newly built seating area on the roof of the building. On 11. 11. 2011, at 11:11 a.m., the doors of the new PodpoVRCH environmental education centre opened to the general public for the first time. The building is designed on the principle of a passive house, recessed into the sloping ground to the left of the new entrance building. Its appearance is based figuratively on the typology of a Celtic circular monument with an inner floor plan made of concentric stone circles (Stonehenge). The central hall of this building, called the "dome", has a capacity of about fifty people. It is followed by a laboratory, an office, and a library with a study room. The interiors of two classrooms for about twenty students were given an unusual makeover in the form of the deck of the "Captain Jack Sparrow" pirate ship and the South American "Indiana Jones" cave.

Shortly after that, the "Zoo of Five Continents"project was completed,dividing Jihlava Zoo into five separate areas according to the continents. On 14 November 2011, the foundation stone was laid for all the newly planned buildings. By 2015, Jihlava Zoo had been expanded by six new pavilions, including six new outdoor enclosures. The pavilion and enclosure for giraffes and African ungulatesare immediately adjacent to the main entrance to the zoo. Its entire outdoor plain was precisely shaped, including a new body of water – the watering place for the animals. This was followed by an Australiaexhibit with all the small buildings and equipment for a bush farm with enclosures and walk-through aviaries. In the third phase of the project, the African primateswere given a new pavilion. This pavilion, including two outdoor aviaries and a central enclosure for porcupines, is immediately adjacent to the north-east side of the main entrance. In the next phase, the Asia pavilionwas built where the aviaries for pheasants, parrots, and kangaroos had formerly stood. In the spirit of buildings found in south-eastern Cambodia, special outdoor aviaries were created for babirusas and, primarily gibbons, who are the emblematic primates of Zoo Jihlava. The reptile pavilionwas the most complex and technologically complicated construction of the project. Its internal layout is intended to give visitors the impression of a meandering river in a tropical rainforest environment, flowing into mangrove trees. The tropical river with exotic fish, crocodiles, and anacondas begins on the south side of the building with a massive waterfall that falls from a roughly six-metre-high rock into a lagoon with turtles. The organic shape of the pavilion and its outer shell, which is made of greenish pre-pickled copper sheets, is meant to evoke the scaly skin of a reptile. The African enclosure and hyena habitatopened to the public in the autumn of 2014, completing the largest construction and investment development of the popular Jihlava Zoo so far.



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