Brussel's Beer Crate Pavilion Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Universal World Exhibition

Using 33,000 everyday, ordinary yellow beer crates like giant Legos, Architects SHSH assembled this visually intoxicating pavilion to pay homage to the fiftieth anniversary of the 1958 Universal World Exhibition. The unusual structure is located in Brussels right next to the iconic ‘Atomium’ building which was built for the original exhibition.

"Understanding that the sense of the temporary can only be truly successful when it is free of waste, the pavilion is built using an usual and ephemeral component which after the event returns to its normal daily use,"

The pavilion isn't a purely rectangular space - inside, the crates are stacked to form architectural features such as columns, arches and even domes.

Attracting attention of its own but still remaining respectful to the adjacent Atomium building, the pavilion is located on the roundabout where it’s highly visible to cars and pedestrians. Tying in the choice of material to historical significance of the World Exhibition, SHSH says “We desired the contents of the pavilion to ask, 50 years later, what the notions of progress, universalism and happiness had brought in their time through the system of international exhibitions, and how could a ‘package’ building be enrolled in the parentage of an architectural solution that manages to convey the architectural questions of a given period in time.” Ultimately, their choice was visually striking, recycled and reusable, and allowed them to reduce assembly/disassembly time.

[via Inhabitat]