World exhibitions, by and large, have long turned into an anachronism. Once they were an important platform for the exchange of goods and technologies, a tool for promoting styles and ideologies, having played a role in the formation of globalism. All these processes have long since moved to other spaces and are using different mechanisms, and the meaning of the Expo has been reduced to a tourist attraction and a vanity fair of states. Milan Expo 2015 was conceived as an attempt to rethink a dilapidated format. The topic "Feed the Planet - Energy for Life" was promising: you can't try food online, and the problems of fighting hunger in poor regions, healthy and diversified nutrition of the population of prosperous countries, and careful use of resources really need to be discussed on a global scale. Stefano Boeri, Ricky Burdette, Jacques Herzog, who developed the initial concept of Expo 2015, proceeded from the assumption that it is absurd to spend funds on self-promotion of countries and corporations that can be directed to real solutions to pressing problems. They proposed setting up a "world botanical garden" or, more precisely, a "planetary vegetable garden" on the outskirts of Milan: there each country would receive a plot where it would show how its characteristic food products are grown. The covered premises, intended primarily for restaurants of national cuisine, were supposed to be as simple, cheap and environmentally friendly as possible.
Introduced in 2011, the masterplan (with Boerie, Burdett and Herzog & de Meuron joined by energy-efficient construction experts William McDonagh and Mark Rylander) called for the elongated section of the exhibition to be transformed into an island surrounded by water, drawn in a rectangular grid. In memory of the traditional layout of the Roman camp, it was crossed by two straight wide roads, the cardo and the decumanum, the intersection of which forms the forum. On the sides of the longitudinal axis of the decumanum, narrow plots stretched towards the water barrier, intended for expositions of countries. Some of these plots were supposed to be covered with glass caps with a controlled climate, some to be left open, and some to be protected from the sun with awnings, like the main passage for visitors - decumanum. However, this concept did not meet with understanding among the participating countries, and the organizers, who were probably influenced by the example of the 2010 World Exhibition in Shanghai (Archi.ru talked about it here and here), preferred the traditional model with national pavilions.
All the authors of the concept refused to participate in further development of the project, although in 2014 Herzog & de Meuron relented and designed a pavilion "Slow Food" at the far end of the site, from which you can get an idea of how they originally envisioned the architecture of the exhibition. Jacques Herzog gave an interview to Uncube magazine in which he expressed his deep disappointment with the failure of the original plan. It spread widely across the network and in many ways colored the perception of the Expo in the professional community. The indignation of architects, especially of Milan, is aggravated by the fact that public money was used to create infrastructure for the territory, which after the end of the Expo will remain in private hands. The exhibition is spoken of as a scandalous scam and is outraged by its banality.
However, if we ignore these sad circumstances and visit the Milan Expo as an ordinary tourist, there is something to see. The organizers retained the basis of the layout, they simply made the plots wider so that they could accommodate pavilions - national, thematic and purely gastronomic. The tents offered by Herzog & de Meuron remained only above the decumanum, which stretches for one and a half kilometers. They fulfill their role of protection from the sun and rain, but at the same time block the view of the facades of the pavilions lined up on the sides. Poorly glued "old" and "new" concepts are also betrayed by the contrast between landscape areas, decorated, as is now customary, with wild plants, and incredibly archaic and kitsch gigantic counters with Italian products - cheeses, fruits, meat delicacies arranged along the central axis. The focal point and symbol of the exhibition - the closing 350-meter cardo “Tree of Life” (designer Marco Balik) - would be ethically and aesthetically inappropriate in the “planetary garden”, but it does its job well as a spectacular landmark. Placed perpendicularly to the decumanum and evenly distributed along its length, the pavilions representing the traditional cuisine of the regions of Italy received very beautiful end facades (water flows continuously in a thin layer along the grayish-brown walls) and neutral side facades, and inside the simplicity sometimes reaches squalor: apparently, in the interiors either the regional governments or the restaurateurs themselves had to invest. In the architecture of many pavilions, traces of reflections on the theme of the planetary vegetable garden are noticeable: walls made of boxes with various plants are often found, and one of the walls of the Israel pavilion is a practically vertical, but well-cultivated field.
There are some very interesting national pavilions. The seemingly past era of architectural attractions lingered in those corners of the globe where a taste for catchy spectacles is combined with a willingness to spend significant funds on them. It is not surprising that one of the most spectacular at this Expo was
Pavilion of the Arab Emirates, designed by the unsurpassed master of "iconic" buildings Norman Foster. The entrance part looks like a winding gorge among the rocks of red sandstone: grooves scanned from the stones of a real desert are applied to the surface of the high-tech material facing the walls, and their curves are calculated in such a way as to best protect visitors from the sun and at the same time ensure air circulation. Clever methods of climate regulation are found in many pavilions, but in this case they acquire special significance - in the future, the pavilion will be transported to the Emirates. Passing through the gorge, where the most important technologies of accumulation and careful use of resources are demonstrated with the help of interactive holograms, visitors enter the panoramic cinema drum lined with golden tiles, and then into the hall where a large-scale 3D performance is taking place. The architect did not pay attention to the interiors, as well as the part of the volume leading to the rear side of the site - there is no need.
The pavilion of Azerbaijan adjacent to the Emirates is maintained in the same tradition of the mid-2000s. This country, independently participating in the World Exhibition for the first time, entrusted its architectural representation to the young Italian bureaus Simmetrico Network, Arassociati Architecture and the landscape designers AG&P. The architectural image is defined by the diagonally lined glass sphere of the greenhouse, protruding from a slightly wavy, but at the base of the rectangular volume. The horizontal wooden slats pay tribute to the theme of energy conservation.
A punk interpretation of the theme of an architectural attraction is represented by the pavilion of Belarus, designed by a young team with the speaking name Kolya Shizza (Igor Kozioulkov, Dzmitry Beliakovich, Aliaksandr Shypilau). An egg-shaped mound covered in green grass is cut in half, and a giant wheel is inserted into the opening, seemingly spinning thanks to the overflow of LEDs on the rim. For greater brutality, a millstone and a Belarus tractor are installed in front of the entrance. It is impossible to pass by, but the exposition, alas, is disappointing.
The pavilion of Germany, designed by the Munich company SCHMIDHUBER, is more in line with modern trends: wooden ramps connect terraces partially covered with rounded awnings, into the fabric of which photocells are integrated, supplying energy to the exhibition. The folds of the awnings collect moisture from the atmosphere, which is used to water the exposed plants. Hidden underneath it all is a two-tiered volume that houses a highly informative and cleverly presented display created by the Stuttgart-based company Milla & Partner.
The United Kingdom continues the same line that it so successfully presented in 2010 in Shanghai
Thomas Heatherwick's hedgehog. For Milan, artist Wolfgang Buttress created an installation dedicated to bees. Visitors pass through a row of fruit trees, then through a maze of honey-bearing "meadows" and find themselves in front of a "hive" - an openwork structure that reproduces the structure of a wild bee nest. The Beehive is built of metal parts, backlit by color-changing LEDs, and has multiple speakers that emit soft bee sounds. All this looks absolutely mesmerizing. You can fully appreciate the effect by going up the stairs and going inside the "hive": thanks to the glass floor, you can see how the honeycombs diverge in all directions. Recover from the adjoining wooden deck bar, serving British drinks and casual fish & chips.
Less aesthetic, but no less exciting, the Brazilian Pavilion offers visitors. Plants (not only edible ones) from different climatic zones of the country are presented in an elongated huge container with wooden walls. But the trick is that visitors are invited to get to know them, passing along a trail made of a net stretched in the air. As a result, bodily sensations strongly color the incoming information.
My personal favorite is the Austrian pavilion. It cannot be said that it was completely revolutionary: in some ways it follows the tradition of the Hortus conclusus, resurrected by Peter Zumthor in 2011 in
the summer pavilion of London's Serpentine Gallery. Yet the interdisciplinary team led by Professor Klaus Lenhart has created something unexpected. A real forest is hidden behind high wooden walls. Hills and lowlands, tall, powerful trees and undergrowth, moss and ferns are all in place. All plants are alive, but the artificiality of the landscape is not hidden. In some places, a mesh holding the ground peeps through the grass, fans and other devices rise between the branches, the purpose of which is not always clear without explanation, and white letters are placed along the path leading into the depths. From the entrance, they add up to the pavilion's slogan, BREATH AUSTRIA ("breathe Austria"), and as they go they melt until only three remain in sight: EAT ("eat"). At this moment, you find yourself in front of the bar, where you can really eat. However, the air is still the main thing here. According to the inscriptions and diagrams, as if drawn with chalk on the plank walls of the gallery of the second tier, oxygen is the main nutrient that our body needs. The plants of the Austrian pavilion produce so much oxygen that its content in the air inside the walls is twice as high as outside, and the temperature is about five degrees lower, which is important in hot weather.
Of course, there are other pavilions worthy of attention at the Milan Expo. Architectural critics praise the Korea Pavilion, and the public is eager to see exhibits in China, Japan and, of course, Italy. They remained outside the scope of this article for a simple reason: it is completely unrealistic to walk around the exhibition in one day. This circumstance brings us back to the question of the appropriateness of such events in our time. More and more people view the World Exhibitions, like the Olympic Games, as completely superfluous undertakings, serving mainly to demonstrate the ambitions of states. They are costly, and, as a result, only lead to the enrichment of corrupt officials and the most clever contractors, often turning into large losses for their host cities and countries. Jacques Herzog with a snide remarks that the next expo under the patronage of the Bureau of International Exhibitions will be held in places where democratic values are not given much importance: in Antalya,
Astana and Dubai.
