The Finnish Pavillion at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 will be built to a design by JKMM. Called ‘Kirnu’ which I think translates as (milk?) churn. A somewhat understated iconic design with a really promising internal space that opens out to the sky. I quite like it but……
I wonder however how relevant expos are to the Architectural debate nowadays in the age of starchitects, blogs and the international media. With national borders never lower for Architects at least in these big projects there seems little differentiation or dialogue in the expo buildings of the last 20 years.
I can think of only a handfull of expo buildings in that time that have been remebered when the expo closes its doors. Whereas some of the buildings of the prewar expos have been hugely influential even while no longer existing. They probably serve a different function nowadays anyway being basically stage settings for countries as buisnesses.