Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

Futuristic 'Future Sensations' this weekend at Eakins Oval

One of four stops in a world tour, this design-minded architectural exhibit will be here for one week only, and will be free to visit.

PEOPLE who've been to "Future Sensations" have a tough time describing it.

The free exhibit, comprised of five walk-through modern structures, opens Saturday in Eakins Oval. It closes June 6.

Three enormous, flashy cubes, one cylinder and a dome were designed to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Saint-Gobain, a Paris-based manufacturer of construction materials with its U.S. headquarters in Valley Forge. The pop-up buildings have spent a week each in Shanghai, China, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Each weighs between 20 and 50 metric tons and measures 13 to 32 feet tall.

When their week ends in Philly, at least four of them will go to Paris, most likely to stay.

Locally based Dina Silver Pokedoff works in communications for Saint-Gobain and traveled with a team to Brazil, just to check out the temporary spaces. "It was hard to tell what it was like from photos," she said. Having been there and back, it's hard to describe. Her colleagues have used the words "immersive," "ephemeral" and "interactive."

She said it's awesome. And that 140,000 Brazilian visitors seemed to dig it. (No numbers from China, where the exhibit was invite-only.)

From what we can tell, it's going to feel like walking into the inside of a plasma-screen TV, trippy Trekky funhouses or bright, oversize cat toys.

One building has laserlike LED lighting (beware those of you who are prone to seizures). Another has all manner of insulated real-life sounds (probably not for sensitive little ears, said Silver Pokedoff, promising that there would be a decibel warning posted outside).

Another contains familiar gypsum wallboard (a/k/a drywall, made by Saint-Gobain-owned CertainTeed, inventor of the vinyl window and polyurethane spray foam) and antique glass that Saint-Gobain made in 1678 for the hall of mirrors at Versailles Palace.

Everything inside, save maybe those centuries-old pieces, is up for the touching.

Silver Pokedoff thinks the most fun exhibit is the rainbow-hued see-through cylinder, which she referred to as both a kaleidoscope and a "carouselfie." She said that a large portion of the exhibit's 140,000 passers-through in Brazil stopped inside to snap photos of themselves inside.

Apparently, those who sense the future still feel compelled to capture the present.

"Future Sensations" opens at Eakins Oval on Saturday with balloon-making, face-painting and, naturally, food trucks. Also notable: The Oval pop-up, now in its third summer, is scheduled to return July 15 for six weeks.