New Aquarium Isn’t Striking : Scripps: Planning for fish and viewer is intelligent, but the appearance is mediocre.

Some buildings make a striking first impression but are not pleasant places to spend time. Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s new Stephen Birch Aquarium-Museum in La Jolla, which opens Sept. 16, suffers from the opposite problem.

The building, designed by Wheeler Wimer Blackman & Associates of San Diego, is intelligently planned and includes several outdoor spaces that capitalize on fine weather and fantastic views.

In appearance, though, the new, $14-million, 36,000-square-foot building is a dud.

Public buildings should represent a city’s finest architecture. Instead, from outside, the new Scripps aquarium looks a lot like other salmon-colored, vaguely Mediterranean buildings in San Diego County.

Perched on a prime piece of real estate on the hill above Scripps Pier, the aquarium could just as well be a new hospital, office complex, or a mansion in Fairbanks Ranch.

That won’t keep sea creatures from four geographic areas--the Pacific Northwest, the West Coast, Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and the South Pacific--from having a happy time in their new home, which includes a simulated kelp bed, two big display tanks and 30 smaller ones.

Something the fish probably appreciate, the new aquarium holds 112,000 gallons of water, contrasted with 16,000 at its worn-out circa-1951 predecessor down the hill, designed by San Diego architect Frank L. Hope, Sr.

Wheeler Wimer Blackman have lots of experience with projects that involve aquatic displays. During the 1980s, the firm designed “The Living Seas” exhibit at Disney World’s EPCOT Center in Orlando, Fla., and Sea World parks in Florida and Ohio.

It is hard to say what aquariums should look like. Should the buildings, as opposed to the displays, somehow incorporate colors, textures or forms that relate to the sea? Should they be “statement” buildings? Or should they take a plain-and-simple approach that lets marine life grab the spotlight?

“What was hoped for was a building that would reflect the timeless, respected image of Scripps Institution,” said Gayne Wimer, Scripps aquarium’s primary architect. “They didn’t want a building that would intrude on the hill. I suggested the simplicity of buildings you find around the Mediterranean.”

The architects were sensitive to the spectacular site. The new building is low, preserving ocean views from nearby houses. It is well-proportioned, with long horizontal stucco walls punctuated by contrasting vertical towers. Several old eucalyptus and assorted native vegetation were left untouched. A berm to the east of the new building camouflages it from nearby homeowners.

But the building doesn’t make the stately, quality impression you might expect, based on Wimer’s mission statement.

There is too much plain stucco and not enough fine detailing. Precast concrete lintels above windows, copper roofs, wood trellises at the edges of a courtyard and decorative ceramic tile atop back walls liven things up, but don’t overcome the building’s generic, spec-built image.

Luckily for San Diegans, looks alone don’t make a building. Despite its bland appearance, the new aquarium includes some uplifting spaces.

Like good classical music that subtly builds to a dramatic climax, the aquarium dramatically guides visitors to the best views.

To get to the building, you park in a well-disguised parking lot to the east. Then you walk past a good portion of the front of the building to reach big steel entry gates, “weathered” with a spray-on coating called Zolatone.

Through the gates is an expansive forecourt. The building’s two main wings flank the court. Joining the wings together, beyond the court, is an expansive, high-ceilinged lobby.

Big walls of glass on the front and back of the lobby let you see from the forecourt to an ocean-view rear terrace that features a tide pool exhibit. The abundance of natural light in the lobby is a pleasant contrast to the dark exhibit spaces.

The north wing of the new building houses display tanks. The south wing contains flexible gallery space as well as permanent exhibits tracing the history of Scripps Institution and a room equipped with video monitors that simulate a submarine descent into the ocean.

The south wing also includes a bookstore and a shop offering products related to the sea.

Offices for the aquarium’s staff are tucked out of the way on the second floor.

In the display wing, tanks are strung along a loop that departs from the lobby, next to a tank full of silvery sardines, and proceeds in logical progression through sections dedicated to the geographic regions. Tanks have been thoughtfully situated to minimize crowd congestion and distracting reflections in glass.

After touring the four display zones, the loop route deposits you back in the lobby, next to the sardines again.

If you have visited other aquariums, including the striking Monterey Bay Aquarium, which opened in 1984, a trip to Scripps is about as satisfying as a dinner of frozen fish sticks.

Although the new Scripps aquarium has spread itself thin to cover four regions, other, significantly larger aquariums, including Monterey, concentrate on marine life indigenous to their areas, offering a much more fulfilling experience.

The $55-million, 216,000-square-foot Monterey facility, designed by San Francisco architects Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis, is an architectural wonder of raw concrete that perfectly suits its site on rustic old Cannery Row, made famous by writer John Steinbeck.

Size-wise, it’s a whopper. Monterey Bay Aquarium’s tanks hold nearly a million gallons of water, and its kelp forest tank alone holds 335,000 gallons, several times what the tanks at Scripps contain. A single tank in a new wing being planned in Monterey will hold a million gallons.

The $24-million first phase of the new Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Ore., opened last May. It contains 227,260 gallons of display water. By tracing a drop of rain from coastal mountains to the sea, exhibits give an in-depth look at coastal Oregon’s aquatic life--again, a more concentrated approach than Scripps’ four-in-one.

But there are reasons for Scripps’ modest size and broader curatorial approach.

“We wanted to make sure we could remain self-supporting,” said Ruth Gebel, assistant director for public programs. “We wanted to expand, but not beyond what we could handle with a modest increase in staff and budget.

“We wanted to stay small enough to maintain the intimacy Scripps has always offered. From the feedback we get, people enjoy visiting a smaller place where they don’t have to take a whole day or travel a great distance.”

So the new aquarium should be a hit with slow-growthers. And for various fans of the ocean, it is undoubtedly a welcome addition, the only place in San Diego, besides Sea World, to study assorted sea life, and to gain a better understanding of the broader science of oceanography through the new museum.

But, by industry standards, it’s too puny for the nation’s sixth-largest city, in a building that disappoints as often as it delights.