Thursday, March 28, 2024

Chile brings its celebrated Expo 2015 pavilion home

Plans to relocate Chile’s Pavilion for Expo Milan 2015 in the Araucania Region of Chile were announced by Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz, alongside the Mayor of the Araucania Region Andres Jouannet, General Director of Direcon Andres Rebolledo and the Chilean Commissioner for Expo Milan Lorenzo Constans. The building will serve as a Cultural and Fair Trade Centre. Relocation is expected to be complete by the end of 2016.

Chile’s Commissioner General for Expo 2015, Lorenzo Constans, said, “The interest of bringing the pavilion back to Chile was there from the beginning. Its architecture was intended to be dismantled and relocated elsewhere. Many regions showed interest in having the structure and I think this is good for the country to be able to bring this building back and that Chileans will get to know it and make it theirs.”

ChilePavilionrelocation
Announcement of project to relocate Chile’s Milan 2015 expo pavilion in Chile. Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile

On May 24th, the space occupied by the pavilion during the Expo, will be officially returned to the organization of the event. The structure was sent back in 46 containers of which 25 have already arrived at the Port of San Antonio. The rest of the structure is expected to arrive by the end of May.It will be set up beside Ñielol Hill, city of Temuco, in a 5.000 square meter area of land which is located alongside important public buildings which includes the Regional Audit Office. It will be managed by the Araucanian Regional Government Office in strategic partnership with the Mapuche Chamber of Commerce.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to bring Chile’s Pavilion from Expo Milan 2015 back to our country. The pavilion of which the central theme was the promotion of Chilean food products, under the slogan ‘the Love of Chile,’ as per a poem by Chile’s Raul Zurita. During a six-month period, the pavilion was visited by more than 1.2 million people and Chilean food products had an enormous success,” Minister Muñoz said.

The final location was chosen by President Bachelet. “We launched a contest in order to determine the ultimate location of the pavilion and we received very good submissions coming from diverse regions. In the end we had a short list and the President decided that the winner was the Araucania Region,” Minister Muñoz said.

Andres Jouannet emphasized the fact that the structure will be located “beside Ñielol Hill, which is an emblematic place in the History of Chile and also for the history of our region, in a cultural context, due to the fact that it will be close to the place where Neruda’s house will be built. It will be also near Temuco Fair, the fruit and vegetable market, and it will be also close to the Literary Ateneo, where Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral used to meet. At the same time, Andres Jouannet highlighted the fact that “this new center will be a place for intercultural exchange where we will be able to highlight our culture, our ancestors, our Mapuche identity and the cultural evolution that has taken place in the region.”

A celebrated Expo pavilion

The wooden radiata-pine-structure of 2000 square meters was made by architect Cristian Undurraga and creative director Eugenio Garcia. The idea behind the structure was to represent the chains of emotional affections that occur from the moment the food is seeded, harvested, transported and cooked, right up until the point of finally being served up on the tables of Chile and many other corners of the world. The pavilion received the Silver distinction award in the category of Architecture and Landscaping up-to-2000 square meters by the BIE. It also received an Honored Award by the Italian National Council of Architects.

The pavilion received additional accolades in three of the four categories of Best Practices for Sustainable Development (BPSD) which was organized by the Ministry of Environment of Italy, the Polytechnic University of Milan and the organizers of Expo Milan 2015.

Read more about the business of world’s fairs and world’s fair pavilions in James Ogul’s book Tales from the Expo, free online at InPark

Judith Rubin
Judith Rubin
Judith Rubin ([email protected]) is a leading journalist, content marketing specialist and connector in the international attractions industry. She reports on design and technical design, production and project management, industry trends and company culture. From 2005-2020 she ran communications and publications for the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). In 2013, she was honored with the TEA Service Award. She was development director of IMERSA and publicist for the Large Format Cinema Association, and has contributed to the publications of PLASA, IAAPA and the International Planetarium Society. Judith joined World’s Fair magazine in 1987, which introduced her to the attractions industry. She joined InPark in 2010. Judith earned a BFA from Pratt Institute. She has lived in Detroit, New York, Oakland, and now Saint Louis, where she is active in the local arts community.

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