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Cartier and Yuko Nagayama Collaborate on Women’s Pavilion for Expo 2025
At Expo 2020 in Dubai, Cartier introduced its Women’s Pavilion, a remarkable initiative aimed at highlighting the essential contributions of women in our contemporary world. This pavilion attracted over 340,000 visitors and reached an audience of 50 million through an extensive program that included more than 120 discussions and presentations. Concurrently, architect Yuko Nagayama made significant contributions with her design for the Japan Pavilion, emphasizing the connections between Japanese and Arabic architectural languages. Now, as we look ahead to Expo 2025 in Osaka, Nagayama and Cartier are collaborating once more to emphasize not only the celebration of women’s empowerment but also the urgent call for sustainability in design.
The Women’s Pavilion, which is open until October 13, ingeniously reuses elements of the intricate lattice façade created by Nagayama for the Dubai event. The construction employs steel rods connected by ball joints, reinterpreting the traditional Kumiko woodworking technique that forms delicate wooden panels and screens without the use of nails. As in Dubai, the geometric designs echo the Asanoha, or hemp-leaf, pattern which is prevalent in Japanese textiles and decorations. Additionally, nonflammable PTFE membranes are incorporated, creating translucent barriers that evoke the art of origami, with integrated greenery blurring the lines between the interior and exterior spaces.
In adapting her design for the compact Osaka site, which is situated opposite Sou Fujimoto’s Grand Ring of timber, Nagayama aims to achieve what she refers to as “the goal of kinetic architecture,” wherein structures are responsive to their environments. “No one had ever attempted reuse on this grand scale, from one expo to the next,” Nagayama stated. “This presented a wonderful opportunity to showcase the possibilities of architectural reuse.”
The structure is designed to be illuminated by natural sunlight, maintaining the aesthetic qualities that Nagayama emphasized in her original design for the Japan Pavilion in Dubai. Detailed elements of the pavilion’s façade system reflect traditional Japanese aesthetics, focusing on the interplay of light, shadow, and wind, creating a visually rich framework for a range of immersive experiences curated by global artistic lead Es Devlin. These experiences include a film by renowned director Naomi Kawase, artworks by Mélanie Laurent, Hiro Chiba, and Mariko Mori, and a garden designed by Toshiya Ogino. “We aimed to create an experience that would engage all five senses of the visitors, stimulating their minds in preparation for direct engagement with Es Devlin’s artistic vision,” Nagayama explained.
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