Shanghai Superlative

Text: Falk Jaeger (redaktion@form.de)

This year’s Expo in Shanghai is the largest world exhibition of all times. On the 5.28 square kilometers grounds you can enjoy some really educational exhibits – most countries, however, settle for simply polishing their image a bit, at a cost of millions. Nevertheless, the architecture of the pavilions is often breathtaking.

For the last 160 years, world exhibitions have assumed the character of architectural zoos: The external attractiveness along with the location on the premises is the decisive factor for a pavilion’s success. Only a few buildings have gone down in the annals of architectural history – the Crystal Palace in London in 1851, the Eiffel Tower and the Machine Hall in 1889, van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion in 1929 and the Atomium in Brussels, 1958. Until the early 20th century it was all about displaying exemplary architecture (even if there was the occasional exalted castle), since then and through to the present the pavilions of participating countries have predominantly consisted of building-size design objects.

“Better City, Better Life” is the 2010 motto in Shanghai, environmental protection and sustainability the general theme. As always there are nations which seek to make a really big appearance. Then there are the smaller countries who have little to contribute and instead simply push tourism through folklore. These presentations may at times be touching, to a lesser extent exciting or fascinating but they have belonged to the world exhibitions since their start. As usual, this year’s competition for the public’s attention produced a mixture of fascinating and curious, educational and incomprehensible, inspiring and meager contributions. The Dutch, for example, played on the fun factor with a colorful architectural collage by John Körmeling. The path leads up a spiral-shaped bridge lined with little houses in which Dutch artists present their works – street organ and glockenspiel not excluded. In the evenings the ensemble lights up like a Las Vegas roller coaster.

By contrast the Swiss Pavilion makes a somewhat joyless appearance resembling a gray-black anti-aircraft bunker in front of which thin flowery chiffon hangs (Buchner Bründler Architects). The chair-lift which ascends over artificial Alps is perhaps the right measure for the Grison’s canton exhibition, but not for ten thousand visitors – the fascination is great, the queues are long. Very long. With its cubist arrangement of suspended but level bodies the German Pavilion designed by the Munich office Schmidhuber + Partner, symbolizes the motto “balancity”. In the last room of the educational round tour (a three-story circular theater) the public is encouraged to charge a giant LED ball with “energy” by calling out and making a noise; it responds with light animations and begins to circle and swing back and forth. Nowhere else at the Expo are the Chinese to be seen in such roaring spirits. But they will also remember the Spanish Pavilion by Benedetta Tagliabue, which presents itself in a scaly dress of woven wicker and shows strong visual and audibly resounding flamenco and bull fighting shows along with any other kind of show you should consider Spanish.

The presentations of other countries, such as in the Denmark Pavilion designed by young architectural star Bjarke Ingels (BIG), are rather information-free by contrast. On a bicycle circuit you can cycle around Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid (the original!), admire a few large slides and exhibited design objects – but that’s it. The English presentation, designed by artist and designer Thomas Heatherwick, is also not one of those which focus on weighty content – but it is certainly one of the most spectacular all the same: His Seed Cathedral hovers on a vibrant landscape of the artificial gray grass proving so popular among the Chinese for rest – it is a dandelion-like object made of 60,000 plexiglass rods which move in the wind channeling light inside. A plant seedling has been inserted into each of the rods and the intention is that these will be planted out after the Expo. In other words, it is a profoundly symbolic concept.

But overall you have to say that the Expo is largely an exercise in superficially atmospheric image maintenance … at the cost of millions. An architectural zoo, in other words.

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