Beautiful outside, often indecipherable inside. We would not want to express too tranchant a judgment, but many pavilions seen at Expo Dubai have left us this impression.
Let’s be clear: we don’t want to say that the contents are missing, quite the contrary. If anything, sometimes there are even too many. Without a guide, however, it is often difficult to grasp its meaning or fully understand the technological and innovative result, which is the heart of this Universal Exposition, entitled “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future” (Connecting Minds, Creating the Future ), divided into the Sustainability, Mobility and Opportunity macro-themes.
Like tomato jars
It is not clear, for example, why in the United States Pavilion they make us get on a kind of conveyor belt at the entrance, as if we were tomato jars to be filled and delivered, and thus cross the entire exhibition path, which is actually not very attractive and a bit kitschy, at least until the last room, extremely scenic.
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Immersive experiences
Nor is the content of the Netherlands Pavilion immediate, which, however, has an immersive experience that is really worth trying, worthy of an art Biennale. At the entrance they give us an umbrella that we will open only in the central hall, while from the roof of a sort of former factory or former granary, images projected onto the umbrellas rain down. The New Zealand and Singapore pavilions are also based on the emotion of the exhibition path – and therefore on the immediate involvement of the visitor.
The latter, in particular, we liked for its green architecture. A large vertical (and horizontal) garden that aims to tell the story of the ingenuity and technologies necessary for the reforestation of the planet, but which for us was above all a regenerating oasis in the infernal heat of Dubai. two bodies of water on which small boats and hammocks float and in which visitors are invited to dip their feet (an experience which, however, we preferred to avoid).
desert and technology
From the paradisiacal gardens of Singapore to the sand of the desert of the United Arab Emirates, whose huge pavilion is one of the most popular (after all, it is played at home). If you manage to overlook the self-celebratory intent of the project, you can appreciate the mix between digital elements and the use of real materials, such as sand that recreates the desert dunes.