Structural Acrylic Failure Analysis: What the Public Record Shows About the Berlin AquaDom

Introduction

Structural acrylic carries some of the most demanding loads in modern architecture, and the rupture of the Berlin AquaDom in December 2022 remains the most widely reported failure of a large acrylic structure to date. This case study presents only what has been publicly documented about the incident and the investigation that followed, with each fact attributed to its source. New Exclusive had no involvement in the project. The single observation offered in our own voice, at the close, concerns how acrylic behaves as a material. Everything else belongs to the public record and the parties who reported it.

Project Specifications

The AquaDom stood in the lobby of the Radisson hotel in the DomAquaree complex in Berlin-Mitte. According to public records and reporting, it was a cylindrical acrylic-glass aquarium of roughly 16 meters in acrylic height, resting on a foundation of about 9 meters, holding approximately 1 million liters of saltwater. As documented in published accounts, the cylinder was assembled from 41 acrylic panels, 26 for the outer cylinder and 15 for the inner cylinder that housed a transparent elevator, bonded together on-site, with the acrylic supplied by Reynolds Polymer Technology. On the wall thickness of the outer cylinder, the published figures differ by source. According to the owner, Union Investment, as carried in news reporting, the outer wall measured about 22 centimeters at the base and about 18 centimeters at the top. In its own published account of the project, Reynolds Polymer described the structure as about eight inches thick at the bottom, tapering to about four inches at the top. The structure opened in 2003 and held a Guinness World Record as the largest cylindrical aquarium of its kind.

The Event

According to news reporting from the time, including coverage by the BBC and the Associated Press, the AquaDom ruptured in the early hours of December 16, 2022, releasing approximately 1 million liters of water into the hotel lobby and out into the surrounding street. Press accounts reported that around 1,500 fish were lost and two people sustained minor injuries, while the structure itself was effectively destroyed. Police were reported as finding no evidence of a malicious act. The building owner subsequently confirmed the hotel would remain closed, and published reporting noted that a vertical garden later replaced the aquarium when the hotel reopened in 2025.

The Investigation

According to published reporting, Professor Christian Bonten of the Institute of Plastics Technology at the University of Stuttgart was appointed to conduct the failure analysis, with the expert report commissioned by the building owner. As described in the K-online account of the investigation, Bonten and his team collected around 700 pieces of debris weighing a total of around 90 tonnes, transported them to a hall in Brandenburg, and laid them out to reconstruct the sequence of the rupture. Published accounts state that the recovered components were examined in detail, including under microscope in the institute's laboratory, with a substantial engineering effort dedicated to mapping where the debris landed.

The Three Possible Causes

According to the K-online account of the investigation, the comprehensive examination narrowed the outcome to three possible causes, with no way to determine which was ultimately responsible. The first was a loosened adhesive seam after two decades of operation. The second was possible notches introduced by handling errors during the renovation work. The third was stresses caused by the acrylic glass drying out during the months it stood empty before being refilled. As the published account states, it is no longer possible to determine which of these three caused the AquaDom to burst.

The Outcome of the Investigation

According to reporting by the Associated Press and others, Berlin prosecutors closed their investigation on October 24, 2023, after the expert report they evaluated could not establish a conclusive cause, and no party was found responsible. Published accounts noted that the rupture left a fragmented, water-swept scene in which the earliest fracture point could not be uniquely identified, leaving the three possible causes consistent with the evidence but impossible to separate. In the owner's published summary of the findings, the commissioned expert described the accident as having occurred without prior warning.

The Temperature Question

Early press coverage raised the freezing overnight temperature as a possible factor, with reporting noting outdoor air around minus 9 to minus 10 degrees Celsius against tank water near 26 degrees Celsius. As later coverage described, this was treated as speculation in the immediate aftermath rather than an established cause, and the differential on its own was not presented in the published findings as sufficient to rupture the structure. It remained one of the conditions discussed around the event rather than a determined cause.

A Specialist Note on How Acrylic Behaves

One observation belongs to us, offered from a structural acrylic standpoint and separate from the published record above. Acrylic does not behave as a sudden impact material. It is brittle at the moment of final fracture, which is why a rupture looks instantaneous, but that final break is the end of a process rather than the whole of it. A crack in acrylic needs a point to begin and a path to travel before it reaches the speed that appears as an explosion. This is simply how the material behaves under sustained load, and it is the reason large structural acrylic is specified, bonded, https://www.new-exclusive.com/blog/chemical-bonding-structural-acrylic, and reviewed by people who work with the material directly. That material understanding is the discipline behind every panel New Exclusive delivers.

Conclusion

Structural acrylic https://www.new-exclusive.com/blog/what-is-structural-acrylic continues to define some of the most ambitious work in luxury construction, and the Berlin AquaDom remains the reference point the industry returns to when it considers large acrylic structures over long service lives. As the Gulf region builds structural acrylic at greater scale across hospitality and residential projects, specialist material knowledge, at the point of specification and across the full service life of an installation, becomes part of how this market protects what it builds. New Exclusive works from that understanding as a structural acrylic specialist based in Dubai, serving the UAE and the wider GCC.

Rabih El Hawarni Structural Acrylic Specialist Founder, New Exclusive Structural Acrylic Pioneers, Dubai