In my opinion Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG, is one of the best architects when it comes to give shape to the interests of an “unspoken” client on public buildings,either representing the values of a country or a culture. All with exceptional syntax and presentation skills.
And BIG‘s latest project (in collaboration with Arup and 2+1), the Danish Pavilion for the Shanghai 2010 Expo, does it again, by taking the best of living in Copenhagen and placing it on China for visitors to experience.
Basically, the pavilion is a big loop on which visitors ride around on one of the 1,500 bikes available at the entrance, a chance to experience the Danish urban way. At the center of the pavilion there’s a big pool with fresh water from Copenhagen’s harbor, on which visitors can even swim.
At the center of the pool you will find The Little Mermaid, a statue that has become a symbol for Denmark. And this time, it will be moved temporarily to China. In Bjarke Ingels words “it is considerably more resource efficient moving The Little Mermaid to China, than moving 1.3 billion Chinese to Copenhagen”.
The proposal sticks to the speech, and I´m sure the end result will be one of the most impressive pavilions at Shanghai.
