KRVIA Blog

Ephemerality versus Monumentality of the World Expo Architecture

Drashti Shroff | B.Arch | KRVIA 2022

The thesis is based on the research titled Ephemerality versus Monumentality of the World Expo Architecture, and the legacy it creates. An intensive study was done to understand the history of world expositions, architectural evolution as witnessed in these events, and the institutions involved with it. As initially thought of as wasteful events owing to the large-scale dismantling and deconstruction of the architecture on site, the design idea to create something sustainable was reasoned.

The Bureau of International Expositions (BIE) is an inter-governmental organization that overlooks the functioning of expositions. As observed, this institution is not represented on the expo sites. This led to the proposal of a BIE Pavilion on the Dubai Expo 2020 site.

The main architectural concept was to demonstrate sustainable approaches by allowing the pavilion to architecturally transform the internal spaces to suit another program after the six months run of the expo is over. The proposal of this pavilion was backed by the possibility of this becoming a prototype pavilion by the BIE.