Ko au te awa, I am the river
SOUTH OF DUBAI, NEAR WHERE THE UNITED Arab Emirates city borders with Abu Dhabi, sits the 4.38km2 Expo 2020 Dubai site. It’s a vast estate, equivalent to the size of 600 football pitches, we’re told. A satellite view, courtesy of Google, reveals it has emerged out of the desert sands in a perfectly symmetrical, alien-crop-circle-type pattern.
At the centre of the site’s master plan is the giant Al Wasl Plaza, designed by American practice Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. Around it, three themed districts – Sustainability (Terra), Mobility (Alif) and Opportunity (Opti) – each with its own central pavilion, are linked to the plaza by radiating walkways.
On the face of it, the six-month World Expo event seems as much an eye-wateringly expensive showcase of global starchitecture as it is a trade fair to promote trade relations between its 190 or so participating countries. Practices such as Es Devlin, Foster + Partners, JKMM Architects, WOHA and Santiago Calatrava have designed beautiful, sculptural and, often, fantastical pavilions for a range of host nations, as they jostle for architectural acclaim in their somewhat-surreal surroundings.
Amongst this esteemed company is the Aotearoa
