Shanghai Pavilion

International competition, 2nd prize. Shanghai International Expo 2010

Shanghai, China

2007

Shanghai Pavilion

The project for the Swiss Pavilion on the site at Shanghai presents a fragment of Swiss countryside “as it really is” : a forest. The lower part of the pavilion is a vast covered space housing an urban area, which constitutes the forum in which debates on topical issues are organized.
The pavilion presents these two aspects of Switzerland: forest and forum. The forest is linked to the question of the identity of the country by its specificity. FORUMPARC shares the experience of the Swiss forest with visitors to the 2010 Universal Exhibition in Shanghai. The pavilion makes no reference to a precise form of architecture, but itself embodies a landscape. The character of the pavilion literally has recourse to a completely natural environment, while suggesting a unified character representative of Switzerland’s identity.
A data base will be set up in order to reconstitute this fragment of landscape in China. The site has been scanned and the result is a cloud of points providing an exhaustive description of the geometry of the physical reality. The transfer of a landscape is not achieved by moving the fauna and flora. What will be transferred to China is information in the form of data bases. The actual reconstitution will be carried out with materials and vegetation from China and eastern Asia, but the visitor will experience a Swiss forest.

group8, Shanghai Pavilion, Shanghai, China, 2007

Client

Présence Suisse

Commission type

International competition, 2nd prize

Image credits

©group8