Yeosu Expo 2012, South Korea

Text and Photos:  Pál Lővei

The history of world exhibitions teaches us the lesson that expos designed to be located by natural waters, rivers or lakes using their faculties – such as the one in Paris, Chicago and Montreal, or more recently in Sevilla, Lisbon, and Zaragoza – have more chance to be successful and memorable than their „landlocked” counterparts. The world exhibition in Korea in the spring and summer of 2012 was directly positioned along a seaside bay. Designers had the theme pavilion embodying the title of the expo – The Live Ocean and the Seaside – built on piles driven into the sea separating an irregular shaped lake from the bay by two pedestrian bridges leading up to it. Viewed from the land the sprawling pavilion conjured an abstract image of a silver whale whilst from the direction of the sea one can see bulging cylinders of various size housing the units of the exhibitions.