two full days since the opening of the expo and 18+ hours of pavilion-hopping (mostly europe zone), i’ve noticed that the pavilions, generally speaking, can be split into 2 categories in their means to bring out the central themes of the expo: those that focus on technology and show off their local products (germany, italy) ; and those that focus on atmosphere and share what their city feels like (denmark, spain). now though i personally prefer the latter, all of them have been informative, if not impressive.
i came across the french pavilion today. that was, unfortunately, neither informative nor impressive. at all. being one of my favourite countries, and with the pavilion called ‘la cite sensualle’, i was really quite shocked. besides the greenery on the ground floor that was rather decent, the first floor was a bare black slope with film projections (if not exhibits) along one side and unopenable windows on the other. honestly, the pavilion did not do the country justice.
but as they say, there’s always something to look at. and in this case, it was the appalling behaviour of the guests.
like a heard of buffalos, it was more like a shoot-and-run session all along the slope. maybe 1 in 10 would actually glance at the projections, and maybe 1 in 20 would actually see what the content was showing. but for most people? i suppose it wouldn’t make a difference if it was garbage on display – so long as you can photograph beside it.
france and shanghai go way back in history. is there nothing more worthy to exhibit in a pavilion in this occasion than a louis vuitton bag? and is there nothing more important to do in a pavilion than posing with a victory sign?
in an occasion themed ‘better city, better life’, people care more about how many photos they’ve taken, how many pavilions they manage to go to. the staff care more about how many souvenirs each person is taking, the architect cares more about how good the pavilion will look in a photograph… when people become increasingly obsessed with the spectacle, what then becomes of ‘people-oriented cities’?!
