LUXEMBOURG PAVILION EXPO2020 DUBAI
Location: Dubai, UAE
Client: Ministry of Economics of Luxembourg
Site area: 3’565 m2
General floor area: 3'700 m2
Status: Competition
Architecture: playze
Scenography: tamschick media+space
Structural Engineering / Energy Consulting: BUROHAPPOLD
Image credits: playze, tamschick media+space
LUXEMBOURG'S HORIZONS
The pavilion consists of a landscape and a firmament. Both the architecture and the scenography play with these two elements and the visitor moves between this field of tension.
Through the movement, new horizons always arise for the visitor.
The landscape stands for the terrestrial, the territorial, the land of Luxembourg. Here conceptually the history of the Minett and the steel industry building on it are anchored. These represent the roots of Luxembourg’s development (first industrial revolution)
It also stands for the development of a society on its own spot. In the case of Luxembourg, this earth has contained a treasure that allowed Luxembourg to carry out the first industrial revolution.
The roof, or the sky, represents the current and future development of Luxembourg (third industrial revolution). On the one hand, the self-supporting construction stands for the territorial cross-linking of Luxembourg with its neighbours and the world. The interior of the shell forms an instrument for the visualisation of spatial relationships, networks and scale jumps.
On the other hand, the (sky) roof stands for the Luxembourgish activities in space. For the representation of the sky, cathedral and dome constructions were historically used. The Luxembourg Pavilion carries on this story and complements the dome with further vaults in the periphery, which spatially expand the cathedral and open to the edges.
The points of contact between the roof and the landscape represent the connection between history and future, that is, the present. The visitors move on an informed landscape and under a digitally activated dome, with which they can interact at these points and influence the content.