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Monday, January 11, 2010

Indonesian Pavillion in Shanghai World Expo 2010 - What I Love and What I Loathe

I always love the idea of a World Expo although I have never visited one. The idea of (almost) every country in the world tries to promote what's great about them and to out-awesome one another in terms of kicking-ass pavillion design fascinates me both as a culture lover (not just pop or geeky one, mind you) and as someone with architectural background. It's as if as a designer you could always go wild with this kind of project.




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Sorry for those of you who can't speak Indonesian, but I can't find the English-dubbed version of this video.


Yes, this video is a CGI presentation about the title above, the Indonesian Pavillion in Shanghai World Expo 2010.


I really dig the design, very Corbusian approach with all the pilotis columns and an interesting interpretation of strip windows. Adds up a free-flow floor plan with tidbits of Indonesian cultural heritage here and there and I think you' d have a winner. But one thing about this video presentation really bugs me off. Slide your media player to 02:26 to 02:28 and listen to the narrator talks about the design style of the pavillion being "traditional, modern, contemporary". It always irks me when government-sponsored script writers for this kind of thing take their cues from real estate brochures. If you ever have read any Indonesian publications promoted by property industry, chances are you're going to find a lot of terms like "modern tropical", "traditional contemporary", "minimalistic design", and the likes.


In my opinion, this will only lead to more misunderstanding among the "muggles" (sorry for the Harry Potter reference there. This, after all, is a geek's blog.) that design is merely about styles. Call me old-school or conservative but I'm a firm believer in William Pena's school of thoughts that design is problem solving , not merely a "style". How you approach to solve a particular problem is what design is all about. But still, beside that annoying narrator, this, I think, is an awesome design


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1 comment:

  1. The architect's name is Budi Lim. He's pretty amazing.

    ReplyDelete

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