Shanghai in final sprint for World Expo – A Preview of Pavilions

More than 50 incumbent heads of state or government have expressed intention of visiting Shanghai to see the World Expo that is scheduled for May 1 to Oct. 31, organizers told Xinhua Thursday, which witnessed the 100-day countdown for the six-month-long mega event.

Five trial operation activities will be held at the end of April to check up exhibition pavilions, security and volunteer arrangements, visitor services and logistics for the Expo, sources with the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination said.

The whole city would be motivated for the last trial, and 500,000 people will take part in the drill, the sources added.

Most of the new transportation construction for the Expo, including a central ring road and new subway lines, have already been completed and put into use. Ferry and streetcar lines that cross the Huangpu River will be complete within three months.

More than 90 bus routes and five subway lines run through the Expo area, and 42 buses will run within 2.4 km of the area. The public transportation system would be able to meet visitor demand, though traffic jams are still possible during rush hours.

EXPO AS ECONOMIC PROPELLER

To date, 192 countries and 50 international organizations have confirmed their participation in the global feast that usually showcases latest advances of architecture and engineering worldwide.

Despite the global economic downturn, no would-be participants have decided to withdraw from the Expo.

Leo Delcroix, commissioner general of Belgian section at the Expo, said that at a time when the western developed economies remained in recession, a savvy policymaker should grasp the opportunity to be offered by the Expo to make preparations for a new-round growth.

Delcroix said that the world economy needed to take a year and a half to recover, during which the Expo would be held. It would be a good chance to showcase to the rest of the world, he added.

Many future participants used to face with such challenges as crisis effect, currency depreciation and budget slash during their preparation for the Expo. But they hold on. The construction of the U.S. pavilion, which had met difficulties in fundraising, is an example.

The United States signed participation contract as late as last July. Construction of the U.S. pavilion began on July 17, and the topping-off finished in October. On Nov. 16, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a visit to the Expo site and appealed for sponsorship for the pavilion, since U.S. laws prohibit the government from allocating money directly for the Expo activity.

According to Nicholas Winslow, president of the U.S. pavilion, 85 percent of the 61-million-U.S. dollar participation cost has been raised, and the construction work will be completed in early March.

“The pavilion will not be a trade show. It will be an opportunity for America to showcase itself to the world,” Winslow said.

The Saudi Arabian pavilion, which costs more than 1 billion yuan (146.6 million U.S. dollars), will be completed in mid February. Designed jointly by Saudi Arabian and Chinese architects, the pavilion symbolizes “the marine Silk Road” from China to the Western world, and will witness the largest human and financial resources the Arabic nation will ever put into the Expo activity.

Russia used to participate in world expo by renting an exhibition venue. But this time, it spent more than 1.5 billion rubles (52.8 million U.S. dollars) to build its own pavilion.

According to The French Exhibition Bureau, France’s Pavilion will show various French art styles — from modern art works like “Homage to Mornet” by French Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki to classic works by artists from 19th-century France, such as Jean-Francois Millet and Vincent Van Gogh.

Shanghai Expo unleashes architects’ playful side

At a riverfront construction site in Shanghai, architect Andreas Bruendler scratched his head under his hard hat as he tried to explain his concept for Switzerland’s pavilion at the 2010 World Expo.

A chairlift that will carry visitors spiralling up a shaft and then over a rooftop meadow before returning inside? Easy one. Exterior tiles encasing solar cells in a soybean resin? A bit more challenging — never been done before.

Since the days of London’s Crystal Palace at the first World’s Fair in 1851 and Paris’ Eiffel Tower in 1889, Expos have showcased the latest advances in architecture and engineering. Shanghai’s 2010 Expo aims to awe as well.

Many of the nearly 200 countries participating in the six-month event, which begins on May 1, have poured more money into pavilions than usual in a bid to do national branding and woo consumers in the Asian giant, officials say.

In theory, the buildings will only stand for the duration of the Expo, which is expected to draw 70 million visitors, most of them Chinese.

But Bruendler says that temporariness is liberating.

“You can explore new concepts. You’re closer to a free idea,” he said.

“With a ‘real’ construction, it has to hold for 20, 40, 60, 100 years. The limited period for which the pavilion stands here gives you a chance to think about the future developments in architecture.”

After international competitions and months of construction, the steel, glass and wood exteriors of the national pavilions are finally taking shape.

Katerina Dionysopoulou, the project architect for Britain’s pavilion, said she and her colleagues at Heatherwick Studio were inspired by a photo from an old Expo showing people “trying to figure out what to do.”

The spiky British pavilion is built around the concept of the Royal Botanical Garden’s Millennium Seed Bank in London, which seeks to preserve plant life threatened with extinction.

The whimsical result — with influences ranging from Victorian gardens to science fiction films — is captivating.

“We realized we had to do something that was so different that people would just literally go towards it,” Dionysopoulou said.

“We took all the seeds and decided to encapsulate them just like the DNA in the amber in ‘Jurassic Park’,” she explained.

“We are putting them inside 7.5-metre acrylic rods. The daylight will make them shine and a small LED that is embedded in them will make them glow in the night.”

A total of 60,000 rods will protrude from a timber box, she said.

“They will catch the breeze of the river and, hopefully, just quiver,” she said.

For Italy’s pavilion, architect Giampaolo Imbrighi imagined how falling pick-up sticks — a game Italians call “Shanghai” — could trace the outlines of narrow lanes reminiscent of both Chinese and Italian cities.

Large plates are lined up and represent the multiple layers of the Italian pavilion by Bicuadro architects

A new material called transparent cement will make up 40 percent of the pavilion’s surface area so that its appearance changes throughout the day.

“The different degrees of transparency make it possible to see light from the interior on the outside — and vice versa,” Imbrighi said.

Finnish architect Teemu Kurkela’s pavilion also experiments with a new material. A genuine white marble exterior was beyond the budget for his “Kirnu” design, which resembles a giant pestle. So his team improvised.

“The surface of the pavilion is made of industrial waste,” Kurkela said.

“We are using this paper that has been made waterproof by plastic. This is a new product developed for the pavilion.”

As part of efforts to develop greener and more energy efficient buildings, many of the pavilions will harness natural light and be cooled naturally.

Some, like the Finnish pavilion, are designed to be dismantled after Expo and transported elsewhere to be rebuilt and re-used.Time and budget constraints can force Expo pavilion designers to be even more creative, Kurkela said.

“Or maybe we’re just crazy,” he said.

Bruendler eventually finds the word he was grasping for to explain the intelligent soybean resin tiles.

“It’s a battery,” he said, explaining that a visitor who uses a flash to take a photograph of the pavilion could trigger a chain reaction of light running around the building.

“The cells collect energy during the day and once their tank is full, they flash. They flash by themselves but they also have a receiver. So you could provoke the flashing of the whole facade,” he said.

Austrian pavillion for shanghai expo by SPAN and zeytinoglu architects the gradient coloration of the porcelain facade covers the entire building