Bahrain Pavilion at Expo 2020 offers unique experience for the world

Dubai, Dec. 7 (BUS): Innovation thrives where change happens. When spaces are open to different ideas, perspectives, and behaviors, dialogue enables forms of progression. However, these spaces are not the elite offices or prestigious forums of our modern age; They are public places, the meeting points of communities and individuals.

Events like Expo 2020 Dubai recreate such conditions on a large scale, a global stadium for people under the motto “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”, and the Bahrain National Pavilion is a great example that showcases the symbiotic relationship between physical space and collaboration. An immersive experience designed by Swiss architect Christian Kerez, the Bahrain National Pavilion is an architectural masterpiece that explores the country’s ethnographic and cultural density as an enabler of promising opportunities.

Galleries, art installations, performances, shop and restaurant are nested in a single open space scheme, mimicking the interconnectedness of the various sub-groups coexisting with the kingdom at the same time.

The freedom that visitors have in how they move through this space, nurturing their individual experiences, reflects the plethora of cultural expressions in Bahrain – in other words, depending on how you interact with the culture presented, and the experience of Bahrain as a pavilion or a nation varies from person to person.

The Kingdom’s National Pavilion is an open and slightly submerged space that can be accessed by a ramp that forms a bridge from outside to inside. A 50-meter ramp protects visitors from the colorful and heterogeneous surroundings outside the pavilion. An access ramp leads beyond the side of the building and later turns towards the main space. At the back, a wide canopy leads via a staircase to the Majlis.

The Majlis forms a spatial form that can also be seen from the outside, while all the other rooms surrounding the hall remain hidden.

The structure of this central space is a rectangular building 24 meters high with a central and open viewing area (900 square metres) divided by 126 steel columns – 11 cm thick. In addition to serving as a support mechanism for each other and the roof, the columns elegantly reference principles of connection and density in an exploration of three-dimensional possibilities inspired by the traditional geometric stucco decorations of traditional Bahraini architecture. Like a walk in a dense forest, the 126 pillars allow visitors to freely experience the exhibition and the planned pavilion program, while the aluminum exterior is one of Bahrain’s major exports.

In most buildings, columns and beams usually cross the architectural space horizontally and vertically, closely tracing the boundaries, but here the columns spread unfathomably in all directions. They penetrate the walls and ceiling and also protrude from the facade. The positions and angles of the windows within the thin casing are a pure result of the geometric arrangement of the columns. It makes playful lighting come into space in unexpected and erratic ways, constantly changing throughout the day as the sun’s position in the sky changes. These sloping columns meet again and again in space creating a dense and plump structure built of 11cm steel columns while the walls are equally thin for their actual dimensions built with frames made of 14cm thin sections. While the slender columns appear quite dense in the overview, it is surprising how light and the lack of placement appear as you walk through the built space.
In most buildings, the supporting structure serves its purpose only to make the building stand, but in this building it becomes a defining architectural event of space and a spatial experience that is not easily deciphered. It’s not illustrative. This unusual and futuristic spatial effect allows open areas for connection with the Kingdom of Bahrain, for example the patterns of building plans for old houses in Muharraq, the introverted living spaces, the dense and irregular traditional decorations of Bahrain, as well as to the latest technologies such as those used in MacLaren Formula 1.

With sustainability a major challenge for every temporary exhibition today, the Kingdom of Bahrain’s pavilion – prefabricated panels for walls, ceiling, load-bearing structure and complete technical equipment including lighting, air conditioning and interior design – will be dismantled after the exhibition and reassembled in Manama, providing a new public space in the center of business in Bahrain. The 126 pillars connected in many ways are a spatial experience of the diverse cultural assets that form part of the social, cultural and economic fabric of Bahrain. It is evidence of the density that underpins the rich cultural production of this small but powerful nation and its identity.

FKN