England Pavilion EXPO 2020 Dubai

At a glance

England, Scotland and Northern Ireland Pavilion at EXPO 2020 Dubai

The "Poem Pavilion" by Es Devlin is one of the eye-catchers of EXPO 2020

In recent years, Great Britain usually comes to world exhibitions with the biggest eye-catchers.

In Shanghai, Thomas Heatherwick impressed with the "Seed Cathedral" in 2010.

In 2015, Wolfgang Buttress brought the giant hive "The Hive" to Milan.

Great Britain / England Pavilion EXPO 2020 Dubai

And now the British have succeeded in creating another outstanding building at an Expo with the "Poem Pavilion" by Es Devlin.
2021 now also by a female artist and set designer.

Architecturally, the British contribution is one of the highlights of EXPO 2020 Dubai.

However, the British pavilions often "enjoy" controversial discussion.

Because the exhibitions themselves are, on the surface, very reduced. This was true for Shanghai, just as it was for Milan and also now in Dubai.

Because for many people the interior is just "an empty space" where there is not much to see.

In fact, the pavilion is inspired by one of Stephen Hawking's last projects.

In this project - called "Breakthrough Message" - the British pavilion invites people to think about what message we would send as a planet if we were to one day encounter other advanced civilizations in space.

For this purpose, each visitor inside is allowed to name his or her own word to the staff, which is then formed into a poem using AI with words from other visitors. Hence the name "Poem Pavilion".

The words and poems later appear on digital displays on the outside wall of the UK Pavilion.

With the resonant name "1851" (for the younger among you: Alluding to the first World's Fair in London in 1851.), the British Pavilion also has a restaurant on the lower floor that will hopefully satisfy all visitors.
After all, with British food, people like to joke about the quality of the food. Let's hope that it wouldn't have been just as good here to have the food prepared by AI instead of a British chef... A little fun on the side... ;-)