The Fisheries Building has been admired without stint, and in its East Pavilion was housed one of the chief attractions of the Exposition -- a double row of grottoed and illuminated aquaria, in which the strangest inhabitants of the deep were exposed to convenient view. It seemed that the circular shape of the building lent itself to the better illumination of decoration of the aquaria. Nothing so beautiful had heretofore been seen west of London. The terminal pavilions were one hundred and thirty-five feet in diameter. The greatest length of the structure was three hundred and sixty-five feet. The area was over three acres, and the cost $225,000.The remarkable structure designed by Henry Ives Cobb, of Chicago, the architect, at once stamped him as a genius of uncommon resources and invention. -- The Dream City
"In the entire structure, with its double row of columns, their capitals depicting in endless group all forms of life contained in sea or river, we have rather a playful delicacy than such grandeur of design as some might deem in keeping with its proportions. In this and other points the Fisheries buildings differ essentially from most of their neighbors; but with a difference to which none but the most captious of critics will take exception." -- The Book of the Fair, c. 17.
The major influence on the exterior style of the Fisheries Building was southern Romanesque, characterized by rounded arches.
Rising out of the foliage of the old park, more ornate and by general opinion more beautiful than any of its fellows, stood the Brazilian Building, a fine example of the French Renaissance architecture. This two-story palace was built with four wings extending from a central dome. The dome was forty-three feet in diameter and forty-three feet high, its crest being one hundred and twenty feet from the floor of the rotunda.