Dystopia in the Desert: Expo 2020 Dubai Embodies Our Unsustainable Attitude Towards Urbanism

2021-11-12T12:05:00-05:00

In a confluence of events, the autumn of 2021 saw the opening of both the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow and Expo 2020 in Dubai. While COP26 is billed as "the last chance saloon" to save the planet, Expo 2020 Dubai is described by its organizers as "the most sustainable expo in the history of expos." This opinion piece reflects on how beneath Expo 2020 Dubai's rhetorical and programmatic accolades, the event is in fact a symptom of a systemically unsustainable attitude towards the built environment and a warped exercise in utopian thinking.

Surveying the U.S. World's Fair Pavilions

2019-07-04T10:06:00-04:00

As the United States of America once again celebrates the anniversary of its declaration of independence, we're surveying some of the patriotic displays of architecture from World's Fair expositions throughout the decades. From aspirational beginnings as a young nation at London's Great Exhibition in 1851 to the iconic, Modernist structures of an emboldening superpower, all the way to the thematic, multimedia mega-pavilions of the contemporary age, US Pavilions across time reflect and have helped shape perceptions of America to itself and the world.

We have selected ten pavilions from various historical epochs to offer a passing glance at some of the more noteworthy American pavilions.

Archinect - Features

Dystopia in the Desert: Expo 2020 Dubai Embodies Our Unsustainable Attitude Towards Urbanism

Surveying the U.S. World's Fair Pavilions