Sowing the Seeds

The UAE pavilion designed by Sir Norman Foster to resemble sand dunes at the Milan Expo 2015

SOWING THE SEEDS

Could the $880 million Expo 2015 be a mere exercise in vanity or is there any substance to its message? GC visits Milan as a precursor to Expo 2020 in Dubai

BY IVAN CARVALHO PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA PEPPER-PETERSON

very ﬁve years countries come together for an

extravagant show unlike any other: the world’s fair.

Since 1851, when London’s Hyde Park hosted the

ﬁrst edition and erected the impressive Crystal Palace to greet visitors, the universal exposition has served as a showcase for

nations to display their industrial prowess and present their

vision of the future. Once great gatherings where major technological advances

were unveiled to an eager public, in today’s instant access world

of the internet the fair has evolved into an elaborate exercise of nation branding, where countries ﬂy the ﬂag and promote

tourism more than trade. For the host city, the event is an

opportunity to reboot its image.

Energy for Life highlights the latest developments in agriculture

and sustainable food production to prepare the world for the challenge of providing for a global population expected to top nine billion in 2050. Organisers are optimistic that the six-month event, which runs until October, will give a much-needed shot in the arm to a local economy looking to shake oﬀ years of recession. A

business destination for those in ﬁnance, fashion and furniture,

hopes are high in Milan for a big inﬂux of tourists, who normally

stop in the Lombard capital for a brief stint of shopping before spending the bulk of their money at more popular sightseeing destinations in Italy.

However, the success or failure of Expo 2015 will not depend

solely on attendance ﬁgures. So far, Milan has seen less than

three million people per month pass through the fair’s gates

This year all eyes are on Italy’s second city as Milan puts on

Expo 2015, whose food-centric theme Feeding the Planet,

32 JULY / AUGUST 2015

Milan Expo 2015 is an opportunity for each country to boost their brand’s image and present their vision for the future

EXPO SPECIAL REPORT

and despite 15 million tickets sold, oﬃcials are whispering that as many as 24 million visitors, or an average of four million a

month, will be needed to cover the $881 million operating costs.

World fairs get graded on the legacy they leave behind and

several recent editions haven’t fared well – just ask the residents

of Hannover (Expo 2000) and Seville (Expo 1992), stuck with

empty pavilions in disrepair and a heﬅy bill. One thing in

Milan’s favour is that the vast majority of pavilions will be

dismantled and shipped back to their respective countries, with

more than half the exhibition space to be leﬅ green.

Initially, Expo 2015 oﬃcials wanted to avoid many of the

problems that plagued cities like Hannover by not triggering a massive build-up on the one million metre squared plot set aside for the fair on Milan’s outskirts. In 2007, a masterplan by a team that included Pritzker-prizewinning architect Jacques

Herzog envisioned a giant botanical garden where nations would

Along the nearly 2km-long avenue of nations at the expo,

visitors are greeted by pavilion staﬀ, oﬅen in ethnic costume and

line up to await tours that display a country’s food culture —

some conceptual, like Japan’s digital rice ﬁelds, others practical,

like Morocco’s exhibit of pristine rows of clementines. While there are architectural standouts among the pavilions
– Chile’s simple pinewood structure and Sir Norman Foster’s design of sinuous concrete walls resembling sand dunes for the UAE– many come oﬀ as overwrought containers playing up national stereotypes that turns the event, in Herzog’s words,

into a “vanity fair”. “It’s a Disneyland of food, with food courts

to attract people. There’s little discussion about the theme of sustainability,” Boeri adds. The presence of sponsors like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s

has also raised concerns. Still, the expo’s manager Piero

Galli defends the setup. “We have invited Italy’s Slow Food

Milanese architect Stefano Boeri

Restaurateur Giovanni Fiorin, owner of Pisacco and Dry in the city’s Brera district

have plots to farm and pavilions would be minimal, replaced by barn-like structures and tables where visitors could eat and learn about countries’ farming practices ﬁrsthand. movement, which arose as a reaction to fast food restaurants,

and McDonald’s so that people can see, taste and compare.

There needs to be an open dialogue.”
“Our idea was simple. We wanted to create an agricultural park and show people how the land is worked, to reconnect people to the soil,” says Milanese architect Stefano Boeri. He

worked with Herzog on the project before oﬃcials ditched it in

favour of a traditional layout with sprawling national pavilions that today feature exhibits with touchscreens and other digital trickery. According to Boeri, pavilions — which have cost the

145 participating nations more than $1.1 billion to assemble —

are a tool of public diplomacy. “It is a sort of Olympics, with countries ﬂexing their muscles through architecture.”

Galli notes the success of Pavilion Zero, an exhibit that

recounts man’s relationship to agriculture through the centuries

and highlights problems such as overﬁshing and the amount of

purchased food that is thrown away today by wasteful shoppers.

“A world’s fair is not a trade show. It addresses issues aﬀecting

all of humanity. Our goal is to make people aware of what they

are putting in their mouths.”

For better or worse, events like the expo leave their

architectural footprint on a city – take the Grand Palais in Paris

– and in the run-up to this event, the Milanese were subjected

EXPO SPECIAL REPORT

Boeri’s Bosco Verticale (vertical forest), a pair of plant-covered apartment towers in the Porta Nuova business district features as many trees as can be planted in a hectare of forest.

to construction sites as roads and metro lines were added or

extended and the canal area was, aﬅer decades, cleaned up. For

restaurateur Giovanni Fiorin, who oversees popular eateries

Pisacco and Dry in the city’s Brera district, the headaches and

costs of getting ready for the expo have not been oﬀset by a

boom in diners so far. “I have seen many restaurants opening

around us in the past year but I do not see the crowds promised

by organisers.”

Perhaps the legacy of Expo 2015 is best seen in the city’s

new Porta Nuova business district. Amid shiny skyscrapers

and Boeri’s Bosco Verticale, a pair of plant-covered apartment towers, there sits Ratana. Housed in a former railway depot, the restaurant is run by chef Cesare Battisti. An Expo culinary

ambassador, he shows oﬀ the pride of his kitchen — a new

vegetable garden.

Between rows of aromatic herbs, fruits and vegetables, which

include 10 varieties of tomato, Battisti argues the fair is not

about having some fancy new urban landmark akin to what

Paris received in 1889 with the Eiﬀel Tower. “The legacy of

hosting Expo is to put Italy back at the centre of the debate

on food and what it means to cook using quality ingredients

farmed in a sustainable manner,” he says as he sniﬀs a sprig

of freshly picked basil. “That is far more important than any single building.”

Under the theme of ‘harmonious diversity’, the Japanese pavillion showcases an interactive installation of an immersive projection space that requires visitors to wade through a technological expanse