The exhibition will run from May to October 2011, and its ensemble of 418 hectares is expected to have 12 million visitors. The motto of this large-scale event is "Eternal peace and harmony of mankind and nature." Confirmation of these words is the very territory of the exhibition: a sand pit on the outskirts of Xian, a constant source of water pollution, which in 20 years has been turned into the "Chan-Ba Ecological Region". The park created for the "expo" will become the center for the further development of this zone.
Plazma Studio and Groundlab landscape architects won the 2009 competition for the design of the central part of the exhibition complex (37 hectares). Called "Current Gardens," the plan called for the creation of relief streams that include architectural structures - the Guangyun entrance pavilion, a 3-part "Creative Pavilion" and a "crystalline" greenhouse with ecosystems recreated there from different parts of the world, as well as the banks of a large pond.
In another part of the ensemble, West 8 has created a small “Garden of 10,000 Bridges”. In fact, this is a poetic metaphor for human life, where periods of heavy worries and uncertainty are replaced by times of joy and success. Such happy moments were marked by the architects in the form of red bridges rising above the thickets of bamboo. Visitors follow the labyrinthine paths, from time to time unexpectedly finding themselves in front of the next bridge (there are 5 in total, the number 10,000 is metaphorical).
N. F.
