DUBAI EXPO 2020 REVIEW

DESPITE THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC, DUBAI EXPO 2020 SUCCEEDED AS ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST SHOW’. TAKE A LOOK AT THE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN IN THE EXPO AND HOW EACH COUNTRY REPRESENTS ITSELF THROUGH THE PAVILION, INCLUDING THAILAND

TEXT: NON ARKARAPRASERTKUL
PHOTO: PASSAKON PRATHOMBUTR

(For Thai, press here)

Every five years, nations gather in one location for a six-month event. The host city invites these nations to build “pavilions” — physical structures that house exhibitions showcasing their unique selling points. This gathering is massive.

Expos were the first to debut technological innovations such as fax machines, telephones and mobile phones, X-Ray machines, and flatscreen televisions to name a few. Food entrepreneurs look back on Expos where the hamburger, ice cream, hot dogs, peanut butter, iced tea, and ketchup were first introduced to the world. For architects, Expo is a “Mecca of new ideas.” Many inventive architectural ideas, e.g., the Eiffel Tower, the Atomium, the Space Needle, capsule hotels, and the geodesic dome, used the Expos to gauge the interest of the public.

This year’s Expo takes place at the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Though the global pandemic pushed the event back a year to 2021, organizers stuck to its original name, “Expo 2020 Dubai.” It represents the first time that the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia have held a major event of this scale (the second will be next year when Doha, Qatar, will host soccer’s World Cup).

Back in November 2013, Dubai won the bidding with the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.” Looking at an overhead picture of this massive 4.3 square kilometer Expo site in Dubai, the design represents three characteristics of modern UAE: Speed,Scale, and Seriousness.

Another thing that makes Expo 2020 Dubai interesting from the perspective of planning and design is the Post-Event Preparation. Unlike previous Expos, where pavilions and most buildings were erected only for the duration of the proceedings, Expo 2020 plans to keep at least two-thirds of the buildings to use after the event. The site of Expo 2020 will be transformed into “District 2020,” a world-class innovation hub for startups and worldwide players in advanced technology.

Architecture of the Pavilions

The expansive site of Expo 2020 Dubai is divided into three main districts named after the event’s sub-themes: Mobility, Opportunity, and Sustainability.

These three districts fan out like fingers from a central “palm”: the world’s largest single-span dome, dubbed “Al Wasl Plaza.” “Al Wasl” is an intentional pun, as it means “connecting” and is also the historical name for Dubai, thus alluding to both the Expo’s theme and the host city. Once the masterplan was completed in 2017, participating nations were asked to choose one of the three sub-themes, which would determine the location of their pavilion. Nations could either build their own standalone pavilions or convert pre-built rectangular cubes.

Each of the three districts has a “signature” pavilion designed by world-famous architects and uses expressive architectural language to deliver cutting-edge ideas. For example, Grimshaw Architects from the United Kingdom designed the “Terra” pavilion for the Sustainability District. As a topic, sustainability never goes out of style. The environmental epoch in which we now live requires our complete effort to alter its course before it is too late. “Terra’s” canopy is a stunning 130-meter-wide structure covered in 1,055 solar panels. The structure, dubbed “Contact” due to its resemblance to the massive radio frequency receiver from the popular film of the same name, is an example of sustainable design that aims for net zero water and energy use.

The characteristic stainless-steel fins that wrap around the Mobility Pavilion “Alif” clearly reflect the style of the hyper-futuristic architectural firm “Foster + Partners” who designed it. Alif is home to a large exhibition that traces the evolution of “mobility” in Arab culture from the development of mathematics and astrology to the modern world of metaverse, in which the physical and digital may merge. AGi Architects created the Opportunity Pavilion “Mission Possible,” which embraces the “plaza” and its global relevance as a space for people to meet across generations, language, and culture, as well as to celebrate our shared human experiences.

As at previous Expos, countries often commission their top architects to design their national pavilions. Even the largest of these structures are referred to as “pavilions” — a relic of the first Expos. A few pavilions were dreamed up by world-renowned architects, such as Santiago Calatrava, who designed both the largest standalone pavilion for the host UAE and the smallest for Qatar.

Expo’s Favorites

The pavilions of Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia were among Expo visitors’s favorites. The Germany Pavilion is a playground and a “living lab” for experiments in sustainability. Visitors can easily lose any sense of time as they move through seamlessly interactive hands-on exhibitions. During our hour-and-a-half stay in the pavilion, we learned about new technologies and their use by rotating wheels, pulling levers, pushing buttons, moving objects, playing games, and more.

Forty-five minutes in the Japan Pavilion is like a walk in a life-size diorama where visitors are free to choose their own paths toward better understanding of Japan. Upon entering, visitors are handed a small personal device to wear around their neck. At first glance this appears to be a simple (even vintage) audioguide.

It is not until later that they find out that this personal device had meticulously collected information about how each visitor had interacted with objects and the choices each had made as they moved through a series of immersive spaces designed to showcase Japan’s past, present, and future as a responsible member of the global community. The information collected from each visitor was then turned into an interactive anime-style “avatar” and projected on a large wall.

The rendering of some forty artistically unique avatars that represent each visitor’s interests makes for a stunning finale. No two avatars are alike, each being computer-generated based on their corresponding visitor’s distinctive footsteps. The Japan Pavilion leads visitors’ imaginations toward the next Expo in Osaka in 2025.

The strange-looking architecture of the Saudi Arabia Pavilion only makes sense once visitors enter the building to experience the world’s most sophisticated projection technology. The building looks as though it is protruding diagonally up from the ground with the goal of reaching the sky. The building’s position reflects visitors’ diagonal ascent from the basement level where the orientation begins to the space at the top. Here, they experience views of “modern Saudi Arabia” through synchronized vertical-horizontal projections on one side and the great aerial view of Expo 2020 on the other.

Upon returning to the lower level, visitors step into a boundless space created by deep, sophisticated projections to experience what it is like to be in a limitless “metaverse,” which may soon be the context in which we humans live, learn, work, and play. Arguably, these three pavilions are successful because they were created from the inside out, with exterior designs subservient to their internal layouts and chronology.

The most successful pavilions, however, are those whose architectural designs fit the exhibition and vice versa, rather than those with the most visually spectacular architecture. The exterior of the UK Pavilion, designed by Es Devlin Studio, is among the most photographed pavilions; yet, the exhibitions it houses leave little impression, because the building’s focus is entirely on its facade, leaving everything else comparatively sterile and deserted. Although interesting architecture has always been one of the Expos’ centerpieces, most attendees are not architects and are thus more interested in other features such as exhibitions, events and performances.

Thailand in Dubai

At the time of this writing, is among the top five most visited pavilions of the entire Expo. The high number of visitors is a surprise given that it is not even among the top ten largest pavilions. Based on our 6-week-long, 18-hour-a-day observation, there are several design elements that contribute to its popularity which are the pavilion’s vista and open space, its synchronized lighting and most importantly, three rotating shows that take place five times a day which draw large crowds at the immersive welcome plaza, providing up-close and personal experience with the show. “In the era of ubiquitous digital technology in which we are living, it’s like a breath of fresh air to experience something physical such as daily performances at Thailand Pavilion,’’ said a famous YouTuber who regularly posts videos about pavilions at Dubai’s Expo.

Inside the pavilion, the four consecutive rooms provide visitors with a straightforward narrative about the country, beginning with the mythological stories that underpin her culture and moving to a historical narrative about the mobilizing power of water. From there, it recounts how digital technology redefines the notion of mobility in all of Thailand’s major and emerging industries, and finally culminates in the humanistic conclusion that what “moves” people to love and come to Thailand is the country’s natural beauty. The exhibition’s full sequence lasts approximately 18 minutes.

Coda

On the plane back to Thailand, our onboard personal entertainment device informed us about a new phenomenon known as the “metaverse.” Large tech firms are investing in the fusion of the physical and digital worlds to create a new space for people to live, learn, work, and play. The goal of this project, like in the movies Ready Player One (and possibly even The Matrix), is to create for us another world parallel to the physical one we currently inhabit. With automation and robots taking care of the laborious tasks in the physical world, humans can live in a digital realm, exercising their cognitive ability in novel ways and creating new tasks for machines to achieve.

Numerous issues would make inhabiting “metaverse 1.0” full time infeasible, but growth of and competition within this space will undoubtedly make it easier and faster for many to collaborate and contribute to its development. Who knows, maybe an Expo in the next decade will be held in that environment, making it accessible not just to 100 million people like in the previous two World Expo combined, but to something on the order of 8 billion.

Are you ready for “Expo 2035 Metaverse?”

expo2020dubai.com