Looking back at the history of World Expo's, I have a feeling that the future as something exiting, something approaching and something desirable.
Now in the year 2010, we are living the future, over 50% of the world's population live in urban areas, blah, blah, blah. City bikes, blah, blah and blah. We know.
To quote Håkan Hellström; "Give me somthing to build a dream upon".
US Pavilion for the 1967 Expo in Montreal . (Courtesy the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller)
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The beauty of arts, here I include architecture, is that it reflects its time.
ReplyDeleteTo continue your feeling, which i agree with, we live in a day to day situation, all depended on how they are doing on either wall street or somewhere on canary wharf. To contradict and find meaning i believe that some people seek to manifestate themselves through eg. monuments which captures the "now".
What Buckminster Fuller sugested is of something much more interesting and intriguing level. He reached out and tried to invision a future which he believed in.
Instead of ending the discussion, he opened it up.
The only interesting project i have yet run into at the expo is the dutch pavillion/TJEK
thanks Bob for bringing up bucky!
No matter how much time Bucky had, he would always ask his surroundings the simple question; What is the most important thing we can talk about right now?
ReplyDeleteSeems to me as he wasn't wasting a second of his very productive life. Don't forget that Bucky was something special! He was always trying to make a better world, not necessarily for himself, but rather he was concerning about a 'world average'. I think this approach is quite rare, and I'm sure it was exactly what gave birth to his future visions.
(What strikes me when I see 'future' exhibitions around Europe, is the fact that Bucky always has a kind of wild card. Is his ideas really still the most future like visions we have?)
If H.C. Andersen is right when he says; "to travel is to live", BIG certainly killed a lot of Chinese people by shipping the Little Mermaid to EXPO10.
The the Little Mermaid, then, becomes more alive(?) and so does the market economy philosophy that lies behind expo 2010.
As a stunt I certainly support what BIG has done. But is it a future vision. What do you think Bucky?
wait, you dont find this one interesting?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/9902/uk-pavilion-at-shanghai-world-expo-2010.html
Actually I think this building has a empty folder called 'INDIE'
ReplyDeletewell, actually this post was a direct reaction to this blogpost: http://rasmusbroennum.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/big-expo-2010-pavilion/ which just pissed me off, talking about how all the art discilipines comes together and becomes one overwhelming loop around the little Mermaid...
ReplyDeletejust as krogodile mentioned, that building for sure has an empty folder called "indie", and i think it's really beutiful and inspiring (no guitars) but still, IT'S AN ARCHIVE/MONUMENT OF NOW.
just to clarify, the first part of my post is about the BIG pavillion and the second part about the aesthetics of seeds-building...
ReplyDeletei agree that if the expos purpose is to predict future utopias, it is a definite failed attempt at doing so, and a rather sad exhibition on the whole. seen as how many architects see it as a global competition of spectacular eye-candy architecture, i think its a winner in its simplicity.
ReplyDeletelooking through the designs maybe the french pavillion is the only one i reckon somehow provides a window into potential future eco-living, i just wished they would drop the retro solar panels.
this might be something
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/5046/bob-the-lost-dog-building-for-shanghai-2010-by-aurele.html
funny, i imagine all these pavillions in effect could be proposed stadium-designs for the 2008 olympics
dutch is fun! fun is good!
ReplyDeletewell, that the dutch pavillion is a winner has already been established.
ReplyDeletein comparison though, did any of you notice the '70 expo dutch pavillion?
Jacko
ReplyDeleteI would like to comment on the point that you have made, putting Bucky and Biggy in the same ring.
The two phenomenons, each representing a strong architectural approach, good and bad in my eyes. Well, nevertheless, they both have(still have) an immense influence in the architectural society.
I see the two gentlemen representing two times.Biggy sees and responds on the immediate, "cooking" everything down into a diagram, which easily sells at the local planning office, (we all love the sun)!
Bucky is in the other ditch. Not ripping his own time, but instead uses it as a spring-board for future predictions. Everything is connected, so is structure to nature. If one thing is, why shouldn't other "things" be?
It is a very difficult situation, and and Biggy will win in 97 out of 100. But i must admit, that Bucky has so much more to offer even if he is a bit difficult to understand and sometimes have to read it twice or even three times.
apropos dutch pavillions
ReplyDeletei find MVRDV's pavillion in Hannover another very interesting project. an experiment which was based on stacking landscapes, which would result in vertical public spaces.
The dutch pavillion in shanghaaaaaiiii 2010, is favourised, if i have to choose one, only because it is fun and takes the piss out of the situation!
concering the 70' dutch pavillion, i find it interesting that while the rest of the world is busy conjouring domed utopias and the like, some of which might as well be set-designs from logans run, the dutch truly manifests a vision what i imagine modern-day rotterdam looks like today, its aesthetics still visible in this recent mdrdv outfit.
ReplyDeletethis hannover pavillion is really cool. ive come to really like this "second wave of mdrdv" as if come to call it recently
@magnunicinator!
ReplyDeleteplease link to your concernings
thais
http://pinktentacle.com/images/10/expo70_31.jpg
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mdrdv.nl
http://www.youtube.com/user/MVRDVrotterdam
enjoy! just look at how much theyre producing these days, and constructing
thanks
ReplyDeletelet's rip them of.
@ Advokaten
ReplyDeleteI believe you have introduced a new term in the architectural discussion. My imediate reference to your "INDIE", brings me back to Nirvana(music), but after having read all the comments, no music reference appears. There-fore, could you please clarify "indie" in architectural terms?
I'm quite intrigued!
advokaten is typing...
ReplyDeletemore expo stuff
ReplyDeletehttp://politiken.dk/kultur/arkitektur/article963126.ece
http://politiken.dk/kultur/arkitektur/article964867.ece
HVAD SKER DER MED AT MAN IKK KAN LINKE I SINE COMMENTS?
ReplyDeleteI bumped into a interesting blogpost at deconcrete.org about security borders at the expo, taking the danish and dutch pavillion as example, which gives this expo discussion more facets, see: http://www.deconcrete.org/2010/06/02/happy-street/
ReplyDeletei bumped into this during my annual snow/winter frustration. from bricoleururbanism.org, a site to follow probably.
ReplyDeleteThey do multiple expo 'deconstructions' but this one on size, quite mindblowing.
http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/deconstructing-the-shanghai-expo-%E2%80%93-part-iii-the-size/
sry i meant this one on the 'effacement' -- the tabula rasa
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/deconstructing-the-shanghai-expo-%E2%80%93-part-ii-what-it-replaced/