I'd like to go to switzerland some time soon and the blur building is on the list, but are the rest of the swiss expo pavillions still in operation and open to the public?
If you went to the Hannover or Lisbon expo sites today what would you see? Are these still operable fair sites you can enter and explore or are they dead wastelands?
gonna save you some heartache and time.....the blur building was blown up,
or rather demolished. I've seen the photos of the implosion, it was a temporary pavillion and this was always on the schedule. a real shame.
not sure about the other buildings, but they may have also been considered disposable.
go and look at the dead wastelands, look at the decay of the pavillion architecture, the pristine laboratory monsters rotting, their concrete eatem by sulfates!
I went to the Seville Expo site in 2000, 8 years after the event. A number of buildings were still standing, falling down slowly, the site was empty of people. Rust, scrap, actually kind of sad landscape.
The pavilion designed by SITE was still going srong I suppose, "conceptually". Giant weed was groing everywhere and the glass was stained with green slimy stuff. It looked as if it was designed to be that way.
Flushing Meadows in Queens ('39 and 64' Worlds Fairs) is still a great place to visit. It is fun to imagine what things must have been like back in the day at the fairs
The Swiss pavilion in Hanover 2000 was basically a timber stack that allowed for the seasoning of the wood.
I was driving in Switzerland last year and noticed similar stacks outside of wood merchants sheds. In Hannover they knew that the wood wood shrink 170mm during the duration of the expo, the building was designed to allow for this transformation and it was bending like an akordeon, but this is another topic.
The point is that after the Expo the wood was ready. Notice that the pavillion was assembled without the use of nails or screwws, only using compression and some tension at points. So the wood was shipped back to Switzerland and used for the construction of new buildings.
The technology behind Zumthor's buildings is as sophisticated as poetic.
do you know of other hanover buildings, esp. the mvrdv pavillion? i've heard hanover is completely NOT worth visiting but perhaps if there's some good pavillions left it may be after all.
I was at Hannover during the Expo in 2000 and it was a great scene to go through the pavillions while they were active. I met a guy in the hotel I was staying in who scored me a press pass so I ate and drank for free all day which made the experience that much more enjoyable.
mdler raises a good point about Olympic sites. Are these projects funded by the government for the sole purpose of providing 3 years of construction jobs for the host city and a 3 month economic burst during the games? What is left of these sites? The Barcelona soccer stadium gets use today and I know the olympic athlete housing near (with the miralles sculpture down the promenade) has been turned into market rate housing...
I suppose these sites and new construction projects need to be programed for future use and maybe the local collegiate / professional sports teams assist in the funding to receive a permanent home afterwards.... interesting..
I went to visit the Lisbon expo in 98.
After the bad post-expo experience of Sevilla 92, and the good Olympic experience for Barcelona, the Portuguese government decided to turn the expo into an opportunity for renewal and to make a new relation between the city and the river Tejo. The site was designed thinking not only on the Expo but also on the future. It was meant to be a new Centre of commerce and living. Two important decisions confirmed this: New infrastructure was built that had a great impact on the dynamics on the whole city; an example is Calatrava’s Train station and Bus terminal. Also the idea of having individual pavilions for each country was replaced by generic blocks where each exhibitor could only modify the interior. This allowed for the iconic status of permanent buildings to be perceived right from the beginning. So the Aquarium, the Vasco da Gama Tower, the fantastic museum by Carrilho da Graca and Siza’s Portuguese pavilion were buildings that not only stood out during the Expo but became cornerstones for the urban renewal. The Portuguese pavilion was even going to be the seat of the City government but I think that this didn’t happen.
There is a good site that shows what is going on in that Expo site which is now called Parque das Nacoes
Just heard a piece on NPR about how many Greeks are upset because of the high taxes they will end up having to pay to subsidise the construction of stadiums.
What happened with the Olympic Village development in Atlanta???
Aug 12, 04 5:04 pm ·
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Which Expo sites are worth visiting today?
I'd like to go to switzerland some time soon and the blur building is on the list, but are the rest of the swiss expo pavillions still in operation and open to the public?
If you went to the Hannover or Lisbon expo sites today what would you see? Are these still operable fair sites you can enter and explore or are they dead wastelands?
gonna save you some heartache and time.....the blur building was blown up,
or rather demolished. I've seen the photos of the implosion, it was a temporary pavillion and this was always on the schedule. a real shame.
not sure about the other buildings, but they may have also been considered disposable.
go and look at the dead wastelands, look at the decay of the pavillion architecture, the pristine laboratory monsters rotting, their concrete eatem by sulfates!
death to purposeless architecture!
tear the barcellona pavillion down!!!
sorry, its been a long time...
damn.... thanks for the heads up tho.
I went to the Seville Expo site in 2000, 8 years after the event. A number of buildings were still standing, falling down slowly, the site was empty of people. Rust, scrap, actually kind of sad landscape.
The pavilion designed by SITE was still going srong I suppose, "conceptually". Giant weed was groing everywhere and the glass was stained with green slimy stuff. It looked as if it was designed to be that way.
This brings up an interesting topic of discussion. Olympic 'sites' end up the same way much of the time (Barcellona, for example).
I heard that the 2000 expo pavillions were going to be bought and re-used as office space for a variety of companies
Flushing Meadows in Queens ('39 and 64' Worlds Fairs) is still a great place to visit. It is fun to imagine what things must have been like back in the day at the fairs
i doubt you could top brussels with it's atomium, worth the visit... if only they'd kept the philips pavilion too..
The Swiss pavilion in Hanover 2000 was basically a timber stack that allowed for the seasoning of the wood.
I was driving in Switzerland last year and noticed similar stacks outside of wood merchants sheds. In Hannover they knew that the wood wood shrink 170mm during the duration of the expo, the building was designed to allow for this transformation and it was bending like an akordeon, but this is another topic.
The point is that after the Expo the wood was ready. Notice that the pavillion was assembled without the use of nails or screwws, only using compression and some tension at points. So the wood was shipped back to Switzerland and used for the construction of new buildings.
The technology behind Zumthor's buildings is as sophisticated as poetic.
do you know of other hanover buildings, esp. the mvrdv pavillion? i've heard hanover is completely NOT worth visiting but perhaps if there's some good pavillions left it may be after all.
I was at Hannover during the Expo in 2000 and it was a great scene to go through the pavillions while they were active. I met a guy in the hotel I was staying in who scored me a press pass so I ate and drank for free all day which made the experience that much more enjoyable.
mdler raises a good point about Olympic sites. Are these projects funded by the government for the sole purpose of providing 3 years of construction jobs for the host city and a 3 month economic burst during the games? What is left of these sites? The Barcelona soccer stadium gets use today and I know the olympic athlete housing near (with the miralles sculpture down the promenade) has been turned into market rate housing...
I suppose these sites and new construction projects need to be programed for future use and maybe the local collegiate / professional sports teams assist in the funding to receive a permanent home afterwards.... interesting..
I went to visit the Lisbon expo in 98.
After the bad post-expo experience of Sevilla 92, and the good Olympic experience for Barcelona, the Portuguese government decided to turn the expo into an opportunity for renewal and to make a new relation between the city and the river Tejo. The site was designed thinking not only on the Expo but also on the future. It was meant to be a new Centre of commerce and living. Two important decisions confirmed this: New infrastructure was built that had a great impact on the dynamics on the whole city; an example is Calatrava’s Train station and Bus terminal. Also the idea of having individual pavilions for each country was replaced by generic blocks where each exhibitor could only modify the interior. This allowed for the iconic status of permanent buildings to be perceived right from the beginning. So the Aquarium, the Vasco da Gama Tower, the fantastic museum by Carrilho da Graca and Siza’s Portuguese pavilion were buildings that not only stood out during the Expo but became cornerstones for the urban renewal. The Portuguese pavilion was even going to be the seat of the City government but I think that this didn’t happen.
There is a good site that shows what is going on in that Expo site which is now called Parque das Nacoes
Just heard a piece on NPR about how many Greeks are upset because of the high taxes they will end up having to pay to subsidise the construction of stadiums.
What happened with the Olympic Village development in Atlanta???
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