With 145 countries participating in the 2015 Expo, alongside input from international organizations, corporate partners and an extensive program organized by the Expo itself, there's a lot going on in Milan right now. So much so, in fact, that it can be a little overwhelming to get a handle on all the sights that are worth your attention.
To help you out, we've put together a guided tour of the key pavilions that are turning heads, including the defining vistas of the expo grounds, the displays that are worth your time and the oddities that might entertain. From the Expo's defining icon, the 30-meter-tall Tree of Life, to the exhibition on architecture's favorite consumable (that's coffee), and all the national pavilions in between, the things you need to see are here. Whether you're planning to visit the Expo and want a quick and dirty way to ensure you've covered the highlights, or whether you're simply hoping to live vicariously through the internet, this tour is for you.
Our tour starts at the Expo's South Entrance, on the center-left of the map below, and follows round the two key axes, the Cardo and the Decumano, to the left, eventually ending at the Slovenia pavilion close to where it began.
1. View of the "Cardo," looking toward the Tree of Life from the South Entrance
2. View of the Decumano
3. The UK Pavilion / Wolfgang Buttress
4. UAE Pavilion / Foster + Partners
5. The Coffee Cluster, one of eight pavilions themed around a specific food type
6. Vietnam Pavilion / Vo Trong Nghia
7. Pavilion Zero, one of the Expo's five thematic areas. Pavilion Zero is intended as an introduction to the theme of the Expo and the Expo grounds.
8. Ireland Pavilion
9. Bahrain Pavilion / Anne Holtrop + Anouk Vogel
10. Brazil Pavilion / Studio Arthur Casas + Atelier Marko Brajovic
11. South Korea Pavilion
12. Malaysia Pavilion
13. Thailand Pavilion
14. Uruguay Pavilion
15. China Pavilion / Tsinghua University + Studio Link-Arc
16. Colombia Pavilion
17. France Pavilion / X-TU
18. View along the green wall of the Israel Pavilion to the Palazzo Italia
19. Palazzo Italia / Nemesis & Partners
20. The Tree Of Life / Marco Balich
21. Vanke Pavilion / Daniel Libeskind
22. View of the Vanke Pavilion with the Tree of Life in the background
23. Ecuador Pavilion
24. Kuwait Pavilion / Italo Rota
25. USA Pavilion / Biber Architects
26. Japan Pavilion
27. Slovakia Pavilion / Karol Kállay
28. Russia Pavilion / speech
29. Estonia Pavilion / Kadarik Tüür Arhitektid
30. Slow Food Pavilion / Herzog & de Meuron
31. Chile Pavilion / Cristián Undurraga
32. Austria Pavilion / team.breathe.austria
33. Slovenia Pavilion / SoNo Arhitekti
