The building was designed by French architectRoger Taillibert as part of his larger plan for an Olympic park that included the Montreal Olympic Stadium and the Olympic pool. The venue was a combined velodrome and judo facility. Construction of the building began in August 1973, and the facility was officially opened in April 1976. The velodrome, along with the accompanying Olympic pool, inspired Tallibert's later designs for Luxembourg'sNational Sports and Culture Centre. In 1988, a feasibility study was conducted for converting the velodrome into a biodome. Construction started in 1989, and the facility was opened to the public on 18 June 1992 as the Montreal Biodome. In the summer of 2003, the Biodome installed an audio guide system that lets visitors get information about what they are viewing, and also provides statistics to the facility about what the visitors find most interesting. Visitors can rent a receiver programmed to receive French, Spanish, or English for adults, or French or English for children.
Exhibits
The facility allows visitors to walk through replicas of four ecosystems found in the Americas:
The Tropical Forest is a replica of the South American rainforest.
The Laurentian Forest is a replica of the North American wilderness.
The Sub-Polar Region is a habitat that is divided into Arctic and Antarctic.
All the exhibits are housed inside the former velodrome that was used for the cycling and judo events of the 1976 Summer Olympics, with each of the four environments taking up a portion of the stadium. A variety of animals live in each simulated habitat, ranging from the macaws in the Tropical Forest, to the lynx in the Laurentian Forest, to the penguins in the Antarctic and the different kinds of fish that inhabit the waters of the Saint Lawrence River. As well, two new species have been discovered living in the Biodome: the acarianCopidognathus biodomus in the simulated estuary in 1996, and the bacteriumNitratireductor aquibiodomus in the water reprocessing system in 2003.
Renovation
In October 2015, it was announced that both the Biodome and the Insectarium would be closing their doors to the public from September 2016 to December 2017, in order to receive a facelift, as part of the city of Montreal's 375th anniversary; however, in August 2016, the mayor of Montreal cancelled the contract to renovate the Biodome, because the bid results received by the city were much higher than the initial estimates. The facelift project went back to a bidding process, and the Biodome continued to be open to the public through 2017; in 2018, it closed, with reopening planned for summer 2020.
