Contract for Czechia’s EXPO 2025 pavilion ceremonially signed in Prague
Representatives of Czechia and Japan on Thursday ceremonially signed a contract regarding the project of constructing the Czech pavilion at the world EXPO 2025 that is set to take place in Osaka. The winning design, which is to be built out of Czech glass, was selected by a star jury earlier this month.
The ceremony took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was attended by Czechia’s Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský as well as Japan’s Ambassador Hideo Suzuki, who explained the overall concept of the 2025 Osaka EXPO.
“The Osaka EXPO will be a platform where all the brightest ideas come together and create another level of new ideas, innovations and solutions to the various global issues that we are facing, such as climate change, poverty, food insecurity, etc.”
The overall theme of the exhibition is titled “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”, with Czechia choosing to focus its pavilion on the sub-theme “Empowering Lives”.
Earlier in March the design of the Czech pavilion was selected out of a pool of 38 submissions by a select jury led by the country’s famous architect Eva Jiřičná.
Michal Gabaš, the representative of Apropos Architects, the architectural studio that won the competition, says that the Czech pavilion will be a crystal spiral made up of an inner pavilion with a diameter of 15x5 metres, surrounded by a tube-like hollow space of a diameter of 90 metres. Within this space there will be various Czech-related installations. The whole pavilion will be 12 metres high.
“We thought that ‘Empowering Lives’ also means putting focus back on ourselves and through this came the concept of ‘vitality’. The whole spiral of the pavilion represents the path of personal growth. In a kind of literal meaning, it also supports vitality because one has to run around and exercise a bit.”
Aside from the foreign minister and the ambassador, Gabaš was also one of the signatories of the contract whose thickness could be measured in inches, in large part thanks to extensive regulations.
The other signatory was Czechia’s general commissioner responsible for the EXPO 2025 exhibition, Ondřej Soška.
“I believe that EXPO exhibitions are a global event. I always compare it to the Olympic Games. An EXPO takes place every five years and provides an opportunity for countries to present themselves to millions of visitors. I believe Czechia will present itself very successfully and we will do our best to do a great event in Japan.”
His hope is underpinned by previous Czech successes, he says, not least in Osaka itself.
“Czechoslovakia was very successful during EXPOs in 1958 in Brussels, in 1967 in Montreal and in 1970 in Osaka. At all of these events Bohemian crystal achieved global fame and became a very popular business article. So there definitely are results and I hope that we will follow up on the success of Czechoslovakia in 1970 in Osaka.”
Mr Soška did not provide much detail on the products and cultural themes that Czechia intends to present at the exhibition, which is still two years into the future. However, he did say that one of them will be music, especially as the country’s classical composers are very popular in Japan.
