Bubble House

The ‘Bubble House’ is a deserted, half-finished house on the side of Cayman Brac, one of the Cayman Islands, most threatened by hurricanes. It is an egg-shared rarity that was intended by its French designer as hurricane proof, but was left behind as a dream in the making, when the owner was sentenced to 35 years in jail for fraud. Tacita Dean came across the house when she was researching the voyage of Donald Crowhurst, the solo sailor who persuaded the world in 1968 that he was in the lead in a race around the world, while really he continued to float around the Atlantic Ocean. In the end he probably jumped overboard and drowned; the boat drifted ashore. Dean s visit to the Caymen Islands was a last step in her investigation of this tragic voyage. There she found the Bubble House, a perfect companion to Crowhurst s boat: two ‘remnants of fraud and deceit’ in a Caribbean paradise.