The Beaty Biodiversity Museum
Hundreds of students pass hurriedly down the University of British Columbia’s Main Mall between classes everyday, but even in the midst of midterms, many of them are brought to a standstill as they marvel in the scientific masterpiece before them. Inside a glass atrium, a massive articulated blue whale skeleton, all 85-feet long, dangles at eye level. Suspended from above, the leviathan creature is unbelievable. “It’s the largest blue whale skeleton on display in Canada,” says Rachel Poliquin, as she pushes open the glass doors to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Poliquin is one of the museum’s exhibit designers, and her eyes light up when she remembers the museum discovering that the skeleton fit perfectly in the atrium. “The building had already been built—it was amazing to see how well it fit into this space. It was like it was meant to be.”