On Tuesday 1st july, Stefano Boeri presented some new steps of Expo Milano 2015 masterplan in Paris at BIE, Bureau International des Expositions. Some extracts of the presentation are following. The video version of the presentation at stefanoboeri.net.
Milan Expo will be the first example of a new idea of universal exhibitions. In 2015 the entire world will come to Milan to take part in the realisation of a huge botanical garden. A Planetary Garden in which all the Countries of the world are called to show their resources and their ability to face the challenge of sustainable, nutrition for all.
In these months, in the passage from the concept plan delivered in 2009 to the master plan submitted to the BIE in April 2010, we have been working to strengthen the idea of an exhibition site able to become a whole with the theme of nutrition. An exhibition site where national pavilions will not be closed within buildings, in fact they will be provided with an entire plot of cultivable land each.
A piece of land where each country of the world will be able to cultivate its own agricultural products, display its own agricultural and food biodiversity and also realise extraordinary greenhouses and futuristic pavilions in which to host cutting-edge sustainable technologies able to face the nutrition challenges of guaranteeing food security to all people of the world.
Each lot of land, i.e. each Country of the world, will be located on the large pedestrian boulevard called the World Avenue that will represent an extraordinary stage from which it is possible to observe and compare researches, proposals and best practices of the entire world on nutrition and sustainable energy.
The great challenge of nutrition will be directly experienced by the visitor live and in real time. Visitors will have the chance to enjoy and taste food from all over the world sitting at a more than one-km-long table; or entering in the Countries’ exhibition spaces where they can see the most advanced agriculture and food production technologies.
They will also have the possibility to follow the processes of food production and transformation, and experience in person the most extraordinary energy innovations.
Nearby pavilions and lots, a ring of navigable canals – a typical element of Italian landscape – allows visitors to explore the different parts of the Expo area.
On the borders of one of these navigable canals surrounding the exhibition site, will be built a residential village for the delegations from guest Countries. The project of the village, looking over the canal, will be developed through a competition among the world best architects.
Italy’s exhibition area, located on a perpendicular boulevard connecting the Media Centre and the artificial lake, will showcase the cultivable land to describe the excellent products of agricultural and food production of the Italian regions. At the end of the Boulevard Palazzo Italia will also host international delegations meetings in an architecture nearby the lake.
The great challenge of nutrition and sustainable energy will have, an appropriate in-depth analysis in thematic pavilions placed in Northern part of the site, and adiacent Fiera di Milano area spaces. In this location some great issues connected with the one of nutrition will be presented and discussed, among these:
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the issues of water resources distribution and seed patents
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the remarkable paradox deriving from the waste of food in wealthier Countries and hunger affecting 1 billion of people in poor, countries;
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the threat of desertification and greenhouse effect and its impact on agriculture, but also the use of technologies altering trees genetic code and the choice of clean technologies,
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sustainability as balaced relathonship between the human being and the nature
Very close to the thematic pavilions and the Fiera area, within a large Performance Centre, the key issues, connected to the theme, will be the focus of public conferences where thousands of young people and visitors will witness the visions of the future presented by the great protagonists of our era: scholars, politicians, artists and scientists.
The southern area of the Planetary Garden will be dedicated to bioclimatic greenhouses. Large greenhouses, more than 50 metres tall, will be one of the main attractions of Expo. Within them visitors can experience a walk in the most typical and extreme landscapes of the planet, discovering how food production processes can turn climatic conditions and geographical biodiversity into resources for food production. The five agricultural and food biospheres of the EXPO will not only allow people to travel among the climates and vegetations of the planet, but also offer great formative, scientific and entertaining experiences.
One of the greenhouses will reproduce the rainforest to showcase how in different areas of the planet, wet tropical climate allows important and crucial cultivations such as the ones of rice, sugar cane, coffee and cocoa.
Beside, another large greenhouse will reproduce a dry tropical environment such as the savana and also in this case visitors will have the chance to witness cultivation practices such as the ones of cotton, sunflowers, millet, barley, agaves, soy and maté.
Even more spectacular will be the experience within the greenhouse dedicated to desert climates and to advanced technologies that allow the cultivation of chickpeas, legumes and palm plantations.
In southern part of the site, a terraced hill will reproduce the typical Mediterranean landscape made of olive trees terraces and vineyards.
Further North instead there will be a wide area dedicated to typical cultivations of wet warm climate such as the one of the Po Valley and the moorlands, hosting cultivations of wheat, barley, rice, corn, peas, beans and potatoes.
This innovative Thematich-Scientific Park will be one of the main legacies of EXPO 2015 to the city of Milan and Italy. A place of entertainment, study and knowledge sharing, that will draw every year to northern Italy millions of visitors in addition to young scholars from the main research centres and international universities.
But the whole Planetary Garden, not only the Thematic Park of Nutrition will remain as vital and productive legacy including a Museum of Nutrition ad a Centre for Sustainable Development, that will be realized in collaboration with many developing Countries.
The legacy of EXPO Milano 2015 is not only concentrated in the site, rather it will be projected in the surrounding territory. In 2015 the realization of a large urban park of 800 hectares that is to connect, following the historical system of canals, conceived by Leonardo Da Vinci, the EXPO site, with Navigli, will be completed. And also 59 town farmhouses, constellating the city as satellites, will be rectructured to be proposed as public spaces for agriculture, but also to provide accommodation to young people and social activities.
The legacy of EXPO Milano 2015 will be both the innovative relationship between the chosen theme and the exhibition site, and a model of sustainability conceived and designed since the beginning as an infrastructure set to last and produce rich cultural attractions. EXPO Milano 2015 aims at unleashing– well after the six months event – the dynamic and entrepreneurial force of Italian and international food production and supply sector and the universe of the regional, national and multi-ethnic catering industry. An EXPO that will remain active and attractive for many years and that with your precious and necessary help will open a new phase in the history of universal exhibitions.
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(for the images expo_01,02,03,07,08,09,10,12,13,14,15,22,23,24,25,26,27, credits: Ufficio di Piano Expo Milano 2015)
(for the images expo_04,05,06,16,17,18,19,20,21,28, credits: Politecnico di Milano- DIAP-Multiplicity.Lab)
