Bubbletecture: Poppable Building Made of Soap Bubbles

Is this the most temporary architecture of all time? Fragile and tenuous but undeniably beautiful, these bubble buildings rise for just moments at a time before they pop. To create the interactive Bubble Building pavilion by Dutch firm DUS Architects, visitors lift metal frames of various shapes and sizes out of soapy steel pools.

The pavilion was constructed in a Rotterdam square, consisting of 16 hexagonal mirroring pools and a seating area for spectators. Part of the ZigZagCity Festival, the pavilion was in place for just a few weeks. It didn’t look like much until visitors lifted the handlebars of the frames, creating huge soap walls resembling glass.

“While the building is temporary, it refers to monumental architectural themes such as the re-building of Rotterdam,” say the architects. “In order to make the building appear, you must erect it yourself, until it pops again. This way, the Bubble Building also is a reference to the current bursting of the economic bubble. Moreover, the Bubble Building is about collective building, as it takes at least two people to erect one cell of the pavilion. The more people join in, the larger the pavilion becomes.”

“Visitors are invited to eternalize their own momentary version of the pavilion in a bubble snapshot, and upload these images to the ZigZagCity website. Online, a multitude of different bubble buildings appear. In these pictures lies the true beauty of the pavilion: the remembrance. As ultimately, the Bubble Building is about beauty.”