A team comprising Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled their design for France’s national pavilion at World Expo Osaka 2025. 

Titled ‘Theatrum Naturae,’ meaning ‘Theatre of Nature,’ the pavilion is inspired by France’s natural landscapes, with a “looping narrative path” that suggests “new entanglements between humans and other forms of life in our cities.”

The pavilion features a single pathway that guides visitors through three experiences: Ascent, Discovery of Nature, and Return to the Ground. The experience begins with a staircase that winds to form an observation balcony. The staircase weaves in and out of the pavilion’s porous curtain facade, offering views of the building’s interior before culminating at a heavily vegetated terrace.

“The French Pavilion invites visitors to enter the theater of life,” said Coldefy founding partner Thomas Coldefy about the scheme. “Both actors and spectators in this production, visitors traverse a path through the Pavilion that stages the essential symbiosis between humanity and its environment, ultimately urging them to become aware of the vital necessity of our connection to nature.”

The pathway culminates on the pavilion’s rooftop, where a landscaped garden is imagined as a “slice of nature serving as a protective barrier above the pavilion.” As visitors walk through the garden, the landscape changes to reflect the varying natural environments in France, including mountains and coastlines.

Architecturally, the distinctive curtain facade of the pavilion is inspired by the experimental history of the French mise-en-scene, while the structure itself will be assembled of prefabricated components. After the expo, meanwhile, the vegetation used in the pavilion will continue to grow in inappropriate climate zones in the hosting country.

“As we attempt to address the changing role of expos today in the context of the climate crisis, we must seek new ways to imagine the relationship between the natural and artificial, combining different forms of intelligence, whether organic or technological, to redefine connections between people and nature,” added Carlo Ratti Associati founder Carlo Ratti.

News of the scheme comes weeks after Carlo Ratti was announced as the curator for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Earlier in 2023, meanwhile, Ratti’s firm unveiled design details for a hospitality project at a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Italy.