Pongoland tropical hall (Leipzig Zoo)

Pongoland grew out of a partnership between Leipzig Zoo and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. In 1997 the institute proposed a Leipzig branch for comparative behavioural research on primates, modelled, according to Wikipedia, on the Yerkes research centre in Atlanta; the zoo supplied the land under a hereditary building lease. The earlier ape house was demolished in 1999 during the building work for Pongoland.

The foundation stone was laid on 3 May 1999 and the facility opened in spring 2001. Wikipedia's article on the research centre gives 1 April 2001, with Saxony's then Minister-President, Kurt Biedenkopf, in attendance; ZooLex says March 2001, and the Wikipedia article on the zoo cites 2 April for the handover to the public. Construction cost is put at about 28 million Deutschmarks by Wikipedia, while ZooLex lists 31 million with a qualifier that is hard to interpret.

Two firms share the credit: Herbert Kochta of Munich designed the building of the primate centre, and Rasbach Architekten of Oberhausen planned the whole facility, outdoor areas and exhibits included. ZooLex presents Pongoland as the first phase of a 15-year master plan, "Leipzig Zoo's 21". The name refers to Pongo, the orangutan genus. In 2026 the zoo marked twenty-five years of Pongoland.

The core of Pongoland is a tropical hall 12 to 19 metres high and 1,600 m² in area, around which five outdoor enclosures are arranged. The hall is spanned by a transparent foil roof meant to admit light and ultraviolet radiation. Wikipedia's article on the research centre speaks of an ETFE foil roof. The whole building covers about 3,255 m²: 1,307 m² of enclosures and dry moats, 581 m² of indoor planting and a 1,250 m² green roof. (The Dahms Tierleben guide gives 3,250 m² for the hall itself, which matches the building's footprint rather than the hall.)

Barriers and walls are modelled as river banks and rock faces, and the roofs of the surrounding wings carry shrubs, bamboo and large trees so that the architecture is largely hidden. An east-west visitor route divides the space, with two enclosures to the north and three to the south.

The climate is engineered closely. Heating surfaces are concealed in the planting about eight metres above the floor, and a ventilation system changes the air three times over, moving 45,000 m³ an hour. A rotary heat exchanger recovers heat and moisture from the exhaust air, and fine water mist doubles as summer cooling; in warm weather air enters low in the outer walls and leaves through roof louvres. The design targets are at least 22 °C in winter, no more than 32 °C in summer and 60 to 80 per cent humidity.

The planting combines existing trees with new additions. The ape park lies in the Rosental landscape protection area and keeps part of its valuable older trees; trunks up to 12 metres high were added to them, along with shrubs, grasses, bamboo and rockwork, according to ZooLex. For the interior, ZooLex publishes a planting list of 66 names, drawn up for the 2001 design rather than as a current inventory. It includes palms such as Areca catechu, Caryota mitis and Rhapis excelsa; figs including Ficus benjamina, F. lyrata and F. elastica; Pachira aquatica and Terminalia catappa; climbers such as Philodendron and Passiflora; and Monstera deliciosa, Strelitzia nicolai and Platycerium coronarium among the other plants (names as spelled in the source).

The residents are the four great ape species: Sumatran orangutan, western lowland gorilla, West African chimpanzee and bonobo, in five social groups. The zoo currently counts 49 primates. African birds also fly free in the hall; the zoo names the violet turaco and the superb starling among them. The Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center, run by the Max Planck Institute, studies the behaviour and cognition of all four species through observation and, according to the zoo, tasks such as touchscreen tests, in which taking part is voluntary for the apes.

Pongoland lies about 500 metres north-west of Gondwanaland. According to its designers, the ape hall keeps tropical conditions through the winter months, which makes it a sound choice on a cold day. The zoo mentions a cave entrance leading into the tropical habitat and wooden walkways along watercourses that run past the large outdoor enclosures, with discovery stations where visitors can try their hand as researchers. The scientists can be watched at work, and the zoo suggests mornings for this.

Keeper talks and feedings take place at set times that the zoo publishes. The route ends at the Urwalddorf, a jungle village with food and drink; ZooLex also lists a shop and a petting enclosure for African farm animals there. The much larger ETFE shell of Gondwanaland, a short walk away, has its own entry in this atlas.