September was still an extremely hot & humid month to visit the Shanghai World Expo and the crowds, apparently reduced to a third of its peak capacity in the earlier months, were still daunting. I came mentally prepared to only be able to queue for a maximum of just 2 pavilions per day and told myself to be satisfied with just that. Instead, over two days, i successfully covered a grand total of 15 pavilions with my partners-in-crime, Day 1 with Rayvees & Anng and Day 2 with Ivan & Lai Yeow. Not bad huh? :)
My favourite pavilion? Denmark, for its architectural simplicity and clarity. Spain was another favourite for its euphoric multi-media projections on semi-translucent cave-like walls accompanied by theatric roars of thunder in darkness followed by an intense flamenco dance performance. UK, i enjoyed how the pavilion could be viewed from different scales, like a hairy furball when viewed from a distance, to a spikey fruit of sort when viewed at near range and super detailed and accessible when viewed up close. France, i liked for its multi-sensorial experience which almost successfully transported me to the parisan cafes and sidewalks and which made me wonder why the Singapore Pavilion didn't do something experiential like this when we had so much racial and cultural textures and colours to offer. More of that later.
Day 1: Monday 6 September 2010
Denmark Pavilion
I liked the simplicity of the 2 spirals looping around each other and the monolithic white of the entire pavilion. The walls were thick and had these circular perforations that drew light in. I think there was some kind of reflective material on the inner surfaces of these perforations.
Cheap thrill but i really loved how, what i think is supposed to resemble cycling lanes, emerged from the ceiling and in a continuous ribbon fashion, curves down to form seating on the entire stretch, breaking up now and then to become a gate, looping horizontally around a waste paper bin, looping again vertically to provide backrest, and double bending to ergonomically fit an inclined human body profile at rest.
We amused ourselves with the moving projections on the wall by trying to match whatever was being screened before it changes to the next scene.
I obviously had no clue what was behind me.
Erm, it doesn't look it but we were pretending to jog along the path.
Fail! Scene changed too quickly.
Um we figured the safety helmets were kinda stinky and sweaty so... we're fine walking up the ramps, thank you very much.
The Little Mermaid statue was transported all the way from Denmark to China on loan for the Expo.
UK Pavilion
As i was saying, hairy furball when viewed from a distance. It did look like some gigantic fruit had landed on the barren ground.
To spikey straw-like rods when viewed at nearer range.
And to microscopic detail at close-up view.
I'm trying to imagine the precision at which these perspex rods had to be installed to get the sensual curvatures required of the interior.
It's interesting how light is drawn in through these perspex rods, sufficiently lighting up the relatively small interior of the UK pavilion.
Um is it just me or does the exit look kinda vulgar?
I got my first stamp at the UK pavilion yay! Loving how cute it looks.
Norway Pavilion
Norwegian salmon and cod lunch with Rayvees & Anng cos we thought Howe Choon recommended it. Apparently he lunched here and said Norway, no-way! Unfortunately at 600RMB (S$120), the 2-michelin star french cuisine at the France Pavilion was a little bit too pricey to consider splurging on in this weather.
France Pavilion
Rather simple but elegant facade, i thought it was worth queuing up for as there were quite many things to see inside the pavilion, from french landscape gardens, to silent french movies, to a delightful sensorial display of french culinary adventures; sight, sound, smell, hearing all at once. Well i guess to get a taste, you'd have to fork out some money. But the sensorial teasers were enough to fill your imagination and following this, were huge projected images of parisan cafe culture which almost makes you wanna book that paris holiday immediately.
The garden kinda reminded me of Tuileries Garden in Paris.
I enjoyed watching the people interacting with the changing displays of french landscapes.
These illustrated posters were viewed by standing within a tubular structure. Hmm i'm not sure why. It's the kind of frenchie-jap illustrations that i love looking at.
Textured wall and ceiling surfaces
What's France without the wine?
Swiss Pavilion
Interesting from the outside, but a waste of time inside i thought. I queued for about half an hour for this in the evening of the second day and wasn't terribly excited by it. The fact that the chairlift wasn't in operation might have had a part to play.
Germany Pavilion
Ahhh... huge huge regret that i didn't queue for this one. But at 4.5 hour estimated queue time, it's pretty off-putting. We figured we'd queue at night when the crowds have dissipated but even at 7.30pm the queue was just as long. The exterior form was pretty exciting still, reminiscent of the BMW Welt i really loved when i visited Munich earlier this year.
Spain Pavilion
The exterior shell of woven basketry was pretty unique and stood out from the other pavilions.
I liked the differing tones of brown accentuated by the curvatures of the baskets under light and shadow.
Hey look who we bumped into! We tried to figure a way into the Spanish Pavilion through the restaurant only to be escorted back into the restaurant proper guaguagua.
Dramatic solo flamenco dance performance wowed the captive audience.
Those bones hanging from above added to the mysterious cave-like interior.
Amazing changing multi-media projections and sound system to soak up all your senses. It's quite funny when we realised that the thunder sounds were intentionally made to coincide with a projected video of Rafael Nadal hitting the tennis ball each time.
I liked the moving strips of projected images as we were led from the cave-like interior to this black box.
Methinks this huge larger than life (literally!) moving baby is more creepy than cute.
Uh-huh.
Canada Pavilion
Think we entered this one cos the outside looked quite interesting and perhaps, the queue wasn't very long?
Most pavilions had lavish multi-media displays and Canada was one of them.
I really love this snow scene.
Day 2: Tuesday 7 September 2010
We were at the Expo from 10am to 10pm at night. That's 12 hours straight!
Expo Axis
China Pavilion
I learnt later that in the attempt to attain china-red for the pavilion, the designer consulted a chinese art philospher or lecturer, who concluded that chinese red is made up of three types of red. Not-so-red, red and very-red. Ok i made them up. But seriously they did come up with 3 shades of red for the China Pavilion, which appears very different when you view the pantones but on the pavilion, what you see is almost a uniform red due to lighting.
Japan Pavilion
3.5 hours queue... nah.
Vietnam Pavilion
Bamboo-cladded exterior. This one is for my Vietnamese colleague, Long.
Korea Pavilion
Another one of those obnoxiously long queues so we didn't bother.
Interesting flipping of the korean alphabets to form a somewhat three-dimensional facade.
I can't read korean but why is it that the alphabets look like they spell L-O-V-E to me?
Saudi Arabia Pavilion
Ho ho ho this one was way crazy. 5.5 hours queue time and people were actually queuing. We speculated that they were giving out return air tickets to Saudi Arabia or something.
Check out the tents constructed just for the impossibly long queues!
And the hordes of people in the queue! Incredible!
i wasn't bluffing.
It's almost hilarious guards had to be employed at the pre-queue before you join the actual queue.
Every fifteen minutes of so, the guards would release the next horde of queuers who would literally run to the next queuring area. I have it captured on video, i'll hook it up once i figure out how to do it.
Israel Pavilion
I have no idea why we decided on this one, possibly cos we haven't quite queued up for any pavilion in the Asia zone the entire morning.
UAE Pavilion
I kinda like how these resemble sand dunes.
Singapore Pavilion
But of course. Actually i kinda appreciate what the Singapore Pavilion was trying to do and if i can somehow get over the fact that the fins are randomly stuck on, i thought the musical box symphony idea was pretty alright. But what was a letdown was how the different aspects of Singapore was boxed up to be presented like an eighties exhibition centre.
In fact it was quite a feat that the entire pavilion was naturally daylit and relied on natural ventilation strategies of ventilation slots and large sweep fans to cool the interior. Talk about sustainable design indeed. Just that to the layman i wondered if they might have compared it to the other pavilions and thought how cheapskate this was without air-conditioning.
I truly felt that Singapore as a multi-racial and cultural bit of a country has so much colours and textures to showcase. I imagine transporting visitors via large mutli-media displays of chinatown festivities during the lunar new year, to little india's colourful display of textiles, to the lunch hour crowd in the CDB, and down to chess-playing or bird-watching hobbies in tiong bahru, which reflect the little nuances and oddities of Singapore life. All of these accompanied by physical sounds of be it the birds, or the lay-long lay-longs of hawkers and where appriopriate include physical furniture where people can interact with, and not simply view from afar. Then with F1 being a recent excitement in Singapore, why not have one stretch of the experiential sequence be yet another projection of an actual night race set against the singapore skylight and flyer, with your ferraris and your renaults racing past curved walls as you walk along or sit around to simulate watching the F1 night race, complete with deafening zooming sounds and all. Well i guess the theme is Better City, Better Life and the focus is on sustainbility so maybe the focus was not so much to showcase Singapore to the world.
Malaysia Pavilion
Customary photo outside the Malaysian Pavilion for my malaysian friends. I'm feeling kinda indignant that Malaysia was the only pavilion that denied me a stamp on my unofficial notebook of an expo passport. I want to complain!
Indonesia Pavilion
Post-edit: My dear Naga, just to be sure i'm not about to be served a writ of summons for discrimination hahah... nah, here's the Indonesian Pavilion, which i did take notice of actually cos i thought the design and proportions were not bad at all. It just momentarily got lost in my frenzy of photo uploads i guess heheh! ;)
Australia Pavilion
This one is for my australian colleague, Chris. Don't say i never take a look heheh.
View of the Singapore Pavilion in sepia tone from the Australian Pavilion.
New Zealand Pavilion
Might as well since got no queue...
Portugal Pavilion
The faceted exterior was made up entirely of cork. Interesting interactive displays inside.
Finland Pavilion
Lai Yeow & Ivan said quite boring so i didn't go in.
Latvia Pavilion
Didn't go into this one but i thought the facade was quite clever. Not that it's anything new but it was quite a pretty sight when the wind blew and the hanging coloured panels gently swayed along.
Up close.
Sweden Pavilion
Greece Pavilion
Turkey Pavilion
Austria Pavilion
I liked how there was an Austrian band performing Rock Me Amadeus with the live crowd just sitting around and the backdrop was an alfresco cafe scene where the patrons were also looking on as if they were part of the listening audience.
Netherlands Pavilion
I didn't like the look of the Netherlands Pavilion but i must say it is one of the friendliest pavilions, offering sheltered landscapes for people to stretch and pinic, its ramps and viewing pods offering scenic views to the other pavilions.
French Pavilion at night
Swiss Pavilion at night
Pork Knuckle, Sausage & Chicken Snitzel at the German Pavilion for dinner. After which we thought we would queue for the German Pavilion and call it a night. Alas the last queue for the day ended at around 7.30pm just as i suspect we were taking our first bite off the pork knuckle, which was just okay. Big regret.
German Pavilion at night
Spain Pavilion at night
Belgium-EU Pavilion at night
Next up: Shanghai
