The Russian Pavilion

Maribel Calzada
ARCH 1403

The Russian Pavilion
In order to begin with this research it is important to define what a pavilion is. A pavilion according to the encyclopedia Britannica is a “light temporary or semi-permanent structure used in gardens and pleasure grounds. Although there are many variations, the basic type is a large, light, airy garden room with a high-peaked roof resembling acanopy”. With time this concept of pavilion has been evolving in such a way that now these pavilions are used for world fairs as an exhibition or competition.
The slogan “Better City-Better Life” was held by the Universal Exposition EXPO 2010, which took place in Shanghai China from May 1 to October 31 of 2010. In this exposition many countries presented projects to offer ideas on how industrialgrowth can be balanced with the protection of the environment. With this idea on mind, the main purpose of the exposition was to create an image on how countries of the future are going to be and still they can conserve the harmonious and urban appearance. In this exposition Russia was one of the participants with a pavilion in where different ideas were offered to achieve the desired balance. TheRussian pavilion was awarded with the second place from among other 200 different countries (FORMIKA para.1).
Different countries of the world were gathered in a 5.28 square kilometer area with each country with a different proposition. The Russian pavilion itself was located in the section C with an area of 6000 square meters. The pavilion consists in twelve white towers that have a height oftwenty meters each, and a central building that links together the towers that is called the “Civilization Cube” and has a height of fifteen meters. The twelve towers can symbolize the twelve months of the year and the hours a clock has. The structure is built with different kinds of metal that made the structure very resistant and supportive. The colors used were white, gold, red and in the nightthey put lights of different colors so the decorations on top of the towers could be highlighted and create a surprising environment.
The Russian pavilion was not designed by a single person. It took a lot of effort to several people from the TOTEMENT/PAPER architects, but it basically was led by Levon Airapetov with the collaboration of Andrey Pantchenko, Valeria Preobrajenskaya. They allcome from Moscow, Russia and together they congregated their styles and knowledge to create the pavilion that would represent their country and later will win second place (Designboom).
According to the Graphisoft webpage everything was designed using ArchiCAD software. In the community news section of the Graphisoft webpage they interviewed Diana Grekova who was one of the collaborators of thedesign of the pavilion and explains that the project was done in an extremely short period of time. They also were affected due to the economic crisis and had to redesign the pavilion to fit their expenses. Diana reveals that the creation of the model took her twelve days and tells that “One of the big pluses of ArchiCAD is that you can conveniently export and import the file into differentrendering and other CAD software, using the built-in converter. We sent the model in DWG format to designers in China. Using this model, the Chinese colleagues assembled the supporting structure of the towers” (Graphisoft).
The design consists on twelve white towers where the essence of Russia is reflected. On top of the towers they had red and gold decorations that represent the history andpersonality of the country. "We wanted to articulate that the process of Russia's development is not finished and continues through today," said Valeria Preobrazhenskaya who is the co-designer of the project. Moreover, the distortion of the top of the towers signifies the continual growing of the country.
The external characteristics of the pavilion consist on twelve irregular shaped white towers....