Tensioned fabric Tubaloon celebrates winter

Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America opened its winter exhibit in February with the innovative architecture and landscape work of Snøhetta, an international design group located in Oslo, Norway, and New York, N.Y. The members of Snøhetta, named after a Norwegian mountain peak, wanted to integrate architecture and landscape in a new way, and a massive tensioned fabric sculpture, the Tubaloon, contains elements of both.

The Tubaloon, made of pneumatically tensioned PVC membrane over a galvanized steel frame, was designed to straddle the main stage at the 2006 Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway. The exhibition contains films, photos, computer models, drawings and other plans for 11 of Snøhetta’s ground-breaking projects. These include the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a library in Alexandria, Egypt; the Oslo Opera House; the King Abdulaziz Center for Knowledge and Culture, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; and the Tubaloon.