spanish pavillion

1. SPANISH PAVILION FOR SHANGHAI EXPO 2010
Architects :
Miralles Tagliabue
(EMBT)
By : Agresh Shrivastava 02
Gourav Goyal
20

2. Architect : Benedetta Tagliabue
Project Director : Makoto Fukuda
Salvador Gilabert
Project Director
on site : Igor Peraza, Arch
Client : SSIE (State Society for International Exhibitions)
Engineers : Structural engineers
Julio Martinez Calzón, MC2 Structures Survey
Engineering
: Mechanical engineers
Tongji– The Architectural Design and Research
Institute

3. • Location : Shanghai ,China
• Cost : 1.8 million euros (US$2.6 million)
• The space spanning 7,500 square meters was
categorized under the theme called “Habitable
Constructions.”
• miralles tagliabue EMBT have been awarded the prize
for the top future project at The world architecture
festival.
• The Spanish Pavilion led by the design team Catalan
EMBT Miralles-Tagliabue was the biggest pavilions
during World Expo 2010.
About the project

5. DESIGN CONCEPT

6. THE DESIGN OF THE PAVILION
The Spanish Pavilion for the 2010 World Expo of Shanghai seeks to reflect
upon the Spanish climate, as well as to recover the extraordinary craft of
wickerwork in order to bring it back to life and to reinvent it as a new
construction technique.

7. DESIGN CONCEPT

8. ‘An expo is about national identity and about knowing and mixing…
So we would like some of the pavilion made in spain and some
in china or asia.
Wicker technology is the same across the world'.
WORDS FROM THE ARCHITECT

9. FREE FLOW PATH

10. • Tagliabue likes the combination of the easy to build, solid and highly
controlled steel structure and the hugely flexible wicker panels which will
allow the complex geometry of the drawings to be realised.

11. • Essentially the plan is for panels of woven willow stems to be hung as a skin
from the bones of steel supports.
STRUCTURE DETAILS …

12. • Have a steel structure and a
wicker cover.
• The wicker will be covered
by a special material that is
water-proof.
• It will also keep the pavilion
at a comfortable temperature

13. • The pavilion is conceived as a series of baskets, some
open at the top and some enclosed, creating a dappled
light in courtyards, circulation and multipurpose spaces.

14. • EMBT’s design is based on different
chinese characters.
• It will be impossible to read but for
the subliminal text will talk about
'maximum systems' such as the
moon, sun and sky.
• The colours of the wicker –from the
red brown
to white – will be achieved by the
treatments it would naturally go
though: stripping, maintaining the
skin, or treating it to make it more
durable.

15. USE OF SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS
• The design was inspired by wicker
baskets, a handicraft deeply rooted in
both Spain and China.
• The frontage of the pavilion will be
covered by wicker while the rest of the
building will be made from sustainable
materials like bamboo and semi-
transparent paper laid out on an
intricate panel system.

16. • “Our objective is to let visitors know that Spain is a country where
tradition and modernity coexist in all senses.”
• Lead architect Benedetta Tagliabue tried to avoid the traditional
box concept for pavilions by leaving large patios that will enable a
better and free-flowing movement of the visitors.
• inside the pavilion, the exhibition will cover three main content
units: “From nature to city,”“From our parents’ city to our current
one,” and “From the current city to the future one.”

17. MIXED USE BUILDING
• On the other hand, the pavilion will have its east wing divided into
three floors where the visitor will be able to access several public
services such as a tapas bar that can hold up to 300 people and
where cuisine based on the best Spanish products will be offered.
• There will also be a shop, an auditorium with a 200 people
capacity and a business center which to take advantage of the
Expo functioning as a meeting place to increase and boost the
Spanish business presence in China.

18. Built in a parcel of 7,500m2, the Spanish
Pavilion has a usable area of 8,500m2.
Aside from the spaces destined to hold the main
exhibits, the pavilion counts with
•Official receptions
•An auditorium with 150 seats
•A conference room (with simultaneous translation)
•A press room (with a production set)
•A support area for Spanish companies endowed with
meeting rooms and work desks

19. This building seeks to play with the
incredible potential of wickerwork.
And introduce wicker as a sustainable
and viable material concept that
remains present throughout the
building.

20. Why wicker?
Basketry techniques a global
tradition shared by cultures of all
times.
They occur in similar ways in East
and West.
In this sense, the material choice
for the pavilion attempts to bridge
between two cultures, the Spanish
(visiting) and the Chinese (the
host).

21. The free form of the structure
characterized by complex curvatures
that made necessary the development
of an independent structural system to
support the form.
project demanded a new
collaboration model between the
architect and the engineer.

22. THE WICKER
In contrast to the high-tech construction of the
tubular steel structure, the wicker panels that clad the
facade use simple and ancient manufacturing
techniques

23. each panel is made of woven wicker
fibers that wrap around a slightly
distorted metal frame to give the panel
a warping effect
Built in small shops by local wicker
craftsmen
CONSTRUCTION METHODOLOGY

24. The different densities of wicker fibers
let through to the interior of the pavilion
changing light and shade
Adding new variations to ancient
traditional techniques and applying
them to a twenty-first century building

25. The strong light of the exterior is sieved through by superimposed steel and
wicker meshes.

26. THE FAÇADE
The facade of the building integrates a completely new element: in a mosaic
like fashion, a series of Chinese characters can be appreciated superimposed
with the facade

27. THE FAÇADE
To celebrate the 2010 chinese year
of the tiger, the spanish pavalion
was dressed in the 'skin‘ of the tiger.
The steel frame is covered, in
more than 8,000 wicker panels.
Three different colored panels,
brown, beige, and black,
creates the impression of a tiger.

28. Computer software was essential in the development of the
Spanish Pavilion.
The form was first devised as geometric NURBS (non-uniform
rational B-splines) surfaces in Rhino software, then
surfaces were cut by vertical and horizontal planes which
resulted in curves that defined the axis of the corresponding
structural tubes.

30. Future Fabrics
The Spanish Pavilion it clearly illustrates the possibilities to build complex
structural systems. The other area that must be acknowledged in the
use of textiles in architecture is the recent developments in textile
technology.

32. “I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight
line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted
to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the
mountains of my country, in the sinousness of its rivers, in
the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved
woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved
Universe of Einstein.”