Silent applause
National air punch in order, guys! From the outside, Thomas Heatherwick’s Shanghai Expo pavilion is a cuddly, cute, perpendicular wheatfield, baffling to the eye, peaceful as a meadow, scary as an electronic fly. Enter its tomby-doomy doors and it becomes a chapel from science fiction, bathed in blue light and demanding of long, drapy clothes and weird head-gear to walk around it in. Fragile, natural, strong and strangely alien, our UK pavilion is a walk-in work of art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpBa_QpkzNE
The seeds buried in the end of each Perspex rod look a bit disappointing after the big emotions that the structure inspires, a bit petty and dead compared to the rest of the work – like a bit of an afterthought. But maybe they are better in real life.
There is no soundtrack on this just-released video of the pavilion (which is not CGI, it just looks like it because of the perfect, polished, pixelated nature of the pavilion), so you might want to add your own soundtrack – either the sound of gently swishing barley, or possibly Brian Eno’s Music for Airports.
Its great to see such originality in design, there should be more of it! Credit to the client on taking on the challenge.