After welcoming over 350,000 visitors, Milan’s Salone del Mobile closed its doors on the 13th April, 2014
As preparations for next year’s edition of the annual furniture fair are undoubtedly already underway, the city braces for an even bigger event in 2015 that is anticipated to bring 20 million visitors to the design capital over the course of six months.
Expo Milano 2015 will take place from May 1 to October 31, 2015.
Expo Milano 2015 is a World or Universal exposition. World Expos take place every 5 years and have duration of 6 months.
Participants include countries, international organizations, NGOs, corporations and other institutions such as the European Union. The number of official participants has now increased to 147, by contrast, Shanghai Expo 2010 had over 200 countries participating
The size of the site is unlimited and participants build their own pavilions. All pavilions will feature a sustainable and demountable design. And even though Expo Milano 2015 stresses the intangible legacies of the event, Expo organizers also hope to develop the site into a Smart City of the future
The Exhibition site area is located northwest of Milan and will cover 1.1 million m².
The Expo area will be constructed as a smart city and will have a hosting capacity of 140 000 visitors per day and will be developed along two perpendicular axes, the “Decumanus” where some 70 self-built exhibition spaces are located, and the “Cardus” reserved for the Italian exhibitors where the EU exhibition space will also be positioned.
Though its pavilions will cover over 10 million square feet in a strategic area of the city between Malpensa airport and the Rho fairgrounds where the furniture fair just ended, the world’s next universal exposition is prioritizing immaterial legacies, not leaving behind not a heritage of imposing architecture like the Eiffel Tower from the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, for instance, but guidelines for tackling the challenges of the next millennium.
Expo Milano 2015 Focuses on an Immaterial, not Architectural, Legacy
With the theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” the aim of the Expo is to gather knowledge and skills from around the world in order to stimulate global debate and collaboration on the issues of hunger and access to clean drinking water.
The challenge set by the Expo is to understand how to establish a new equilibrium between the available resources and nutritional demand of a growing world population that will reach nine billion people in 2050.
http://youtu.be/e0UK0QLCWNw
These exhibition spaces represent the first time in the history of the Universal Exposition—the first one arguably being the Great Exhibition that took place in the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park in 1851—that exhibitors will not adhere to geographical groupings.
While larger nations will feature their own pavilions as in expositions past, 77 countries and two international organizations will jointly participate in nine clusters based around specific foods like coffee, cocoa, and rice.
The Italian Pavilion
The competition winning architects for the construction of the Italian Pavilion Expo 2015 – were Michael Mole and Susanna Tradati from Nemesi & Partners Architects
The large model of the Expo 2015 Milan Pavilion Italia, was on display for the first time in Milan during the Salone, at the Università degli Studi di Milano, as part of the major exhibition Event ” Feeding New Ideas for the City”
Michael Mole from Nemesi & Partners Architects
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“Entreepic” by Nemesis & Partners for Interni at Statale University Milan
This Interni installation takes up the motif of the exterior facades that characterize the Italian pavilion at Expo 2015. The design recalls the nature and its laws of uncontrolled growth.
The material is biodynamic cement , a premixed organic capable of returning a warm and vibrant materiality similar to the stone , the result of innovative technology developed by Italcementi and Styl Group Co
lecture given by Susanna Tradati from Nemesis & Partners Architects
Diana Bracco – President of Expo 2015 s. p. a. and Commissioner-General of the Italy Pavilion said : “an international event like the” Salone del Mobile “seemed to us the best opportunity to offer a preview of how it will be at the Expo Italy Palace”.
The Theme of Expo Milano 2015, “Feeding the Planet: Energy for Life”, embodies this idea as it brings forward the truly global challenge: is it possible to ensure sufficient, good, healthy and sustainable food for all mankind?
This edition of the Expo is meant to become a milestone of planetary debate on food and sustainability and will be a platform for political discussions and policy initiatives on these issues.
The theme cuts across several EU policies, including: agriculture; industry; trade; development and humanitarian aid; food safety and quality; energy; climate change, environment; education and last but not least, research and innovation.
Expo Milan 2015 therefore represents a unique opportunity for the EU to reinforce its role as a global actor in the global discussion about the ever growing issues of food and sustainability.
A Reflection on the Food We Consume in a Changing World
Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life will advocate the access to safe, sufficient, and balanced diet for all as a basic human right.
It will deal with the wide range of issues associated with human nutrition, both in terms of the quality of food we consume and the supply of food for everyone.
Indeed, in the 21st century context of a rapidly growing population and a fast deteriorating environment that threaten the very source of life for humanity, ensuring food safety and food security represents a top global concern that requires a long-term vision and sustainable solutions by all nations of the world. The goal of the Expo will be to promote best practices relevant to the theme and to spur an international consensus in the face of one of the most pressing issues of our time.
The 7 sub-themes of EXPO Milano 2015:
Science for Food Safety, Security and Quality
Innovation in the Agro Food Supply Chain
Technology for Agriculture and Biodiversity
Dietary Education
Solidarity and Cooperation on Food
Food for Better Lifestyles
Food in the World’s Cultures and Ethnic Groups
A dynamic and vibrant global metropolis known for integrating innovation and traditional culture, Milan also boasts a centrality of location and the know-how of entertaining visitors to the city, which will no doubt serve as assets as it prepares to host a World Exhibition.
Expos have always been major international events in which countries, private stakeholders and organisations present and promote their identity, their policies and achievements in relation to Expo themes.
The first article of the International Convention Relating to International Exhibitions says that:
“An exhibition is a display which, whatever its title, has as its principal purpose the education of the public: it may exhibit the means at man’s disposal for meeting the needs of civilization, or demonstrate the progress achieved in one or more branches of human endeavour, or show prospects for the future.”
World Expos are indeed referred to as Universal Expos also because, contrarily to the Expos prior to the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair which aimed to display major technological novelties, each world Expo has from then on adopted a specific cultural theme that concerns the whole of humanity
For more Information about World Expo(s) see the following links –
http://www.expo2015.org/en
http://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/
http://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/feeding-the-planet-energy-for-life
