New Zealand Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo

AuthorByron 12 April 2010 Comments

Images and renderings have been released for the New Zealand Pavilion at this years World Expo in Shanghai. Luckily its a step up from our embarrassing french rugby ball 'pavilion', unluckily, it looks like a Mini-Golf course.

I can't figure out how these opportunities to express something formidable and respectable about New Zealand society and our (built and natural) environments end up being these kitsch amusement parks. These things are important Mr. Minister for Tourism, so remember our last Minister having the embarrasing task of talking up an inflatable rugby ball ("This pavilion itself is another symbol of the growing technological sophistication of New Zealand. Its construction required several world-firsts: nobody has made an inflatable building in this shape before, and projecting a coherent image onto an oval-shaped surface is no mean feat." read the rest here), that takes guts, standing under the Eiffel Tower.

Story Inc have been given design credits for the pavilion it seems, at the official Expo homepage here, who seem to have a successful portfolio of some interesting museum and gallery installations, but in my quickish hunt for a designer of the building and landscape, nothing is revealed (please help me out here!). So I look a bit closer at Story Inc and wonder if we actually gave them the whole deal, with their experience in "work rang[ing] from museum exhibitions to theme park experiences, from visitor interpretation centres to art installations – and everything in between."

Actually that explains a lot. I would probably file this project under all of the above. I invite you to peruse at your leisure the press release which details the finer 'conceptual' devices that are packed into this gem (don't forget the "maori totem poles", they're interactive!), as well as the official Expo page where you can learn about our Pavillion Highlights like "The welcoming space in front of the pavilion is a physical manifestation of Rangi and Papa. The white canopy in the plaza representing Sky is supported by white pillars that represent a vertical forest. It is erected on the forecourt that symbolizes Earth." Sorry folks, that would hardly fly with my First Years.

Finally, we are invited in to the interiors, a smooth digital video rendering of the design can be viewed here, which in my opinion is appalling, and reeks of Mini-Golf, Kelly Tarltons and sentimental mediocrity. What on earth does this have to do with New Zealand? What does this have to do with anything? I have no idea, and only wish that some descent architecture and landscape architecture could have substituted this bizarre pavilion, which is at best a 3D powerpoint, and at worst an offensive exploitation of our cultural significance. It's both, and it's bad.

It's fairly harsh of me to pile this on the designers, so I hope somebody can help me alleviate some of that stench, predictably I would say some governmental enthusiast has enjoyed writing the brief, lovingly sprinkling it with kitschy cliché's and horrendous lines about Kiwi Kultcha, with the ambitious hope of attracting investors with a sentimental-clip on their wallets. Good luck to you. For my money, I'd give them putters and a golf ball and let them loose, maybe a driving range off the roof garden for good measure.

Cruelly expensive stuff. That's enough.

9 Comments

The 'official' story here: http://www.nzte.govt.nz/EXPLORE-EXPORT-MARKETS/NORTH-ASIA/DOING-BUSINESS-IN-CHINA/NEW-ZEALAND-AT-SHANGHAI-WORLD-EXPO-2010/Pages/The-New-Zealand-Pavilion.aspx

WAM

From Oct 08: "The winning tender for the New Zealand Pavilion was submitted by a consortium comprised of project management company Coffey Projects, architects Warren and Mahoney, visitor experience specialists Story Inc., quantity surveyors Rider Levett Bucknall and leading garden designer Kim Jarrett, with engineers Beca subsequently joining the team."

It is by Warren and Mahoney. The Pavilion and The Supreme Court are painful reflections, but not distortions. There is something intrinsically New Zealand about the Pavilion that reflects the spirit of the age. I just wish I grew up in an age where Warren and Mahoney had to pass first year again.

warren and mahoney

A NZ company called Dawnfinder are the landscape designers Kim Jarrad & Tina Hart are to thank for this NZ pavilion.

There has been lots of work behind the secnes to make all this work.Some of NZ on show on NZ budget compared to other countries displays. Good Kiwi!

Thanks people. I_am_Sam, I appreciate the info on the wider team, which I suspected would be a fairly mixed and expansive one -as these projects should be. I acknowledge completely that these projects are inherently difficult, ANY project is difficult to realise given the increasingly complex character of the 'client' and various stakeholders in the room for a scheme like this. My critique is fairly broad (or befittingly 'expansive') so it would be unfair to 'pile' it on any one so to speak, maybe a gentle spreading is more reasonable, like a wafting irrigation.

This is weak criticism. It avoids engaging with the project itself, either architecturally or as an exhibition.

For example, the interiors as shown in the video show unresolved conflicts between the display, circulation and structure, but simply saying "it looks like Kelly Tarltons" doesn't make any kind of point. You refuse to say why this is bad?

I think your article is unspecific and reactionary. Saying "I don't like it" over and over does not add to, or inform anyone's understanding of the project.

I'm not a huge fan of this thing (although I think it's openness to the site is interesting compared to many other, more hermetic schemes), but your account of it is worse.