Czech Republic Pavilion

Visitors to the Czech pavilion in the World Exposition EXPO in Shanghai will find themselves in a fictitious city, "where one can feel well and safe. In a city of activity, charms, production, travelling, observing and listening, where any passer-by can take an active part."

This concept was used by the development team under the guidance of Ing. Arch. Jaromír Švarc and was presented to the selection commission for the public tender under the heading of a Czech Republic Pavilion and Exposition Summary Design for the EXPO 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai. Main Theme of the 2010 World's Exposition "Better City - Better Life" as well as the theme of the national participation under "Fruits of Civilization," had inspired the creators of this winning design to create an imaginary urbanized countryside. The pavilion and the exposition design is based in urban structures which are briefly depicted in caricature on the facades in front of the pavilion and within the exposition.

Arch. Jiří Buček and his colleagues from SIAL Studio had installed a decal-form of one of the best quality urban units world-wide, which is the Old Town of Prague. The structure is compiled of small units, which together make individual city blocks. These units are ice hockey pucks, a significant country's export article and a symbol of our numerous sports world's firsts. The ice hockey pucks composition, set against a white background on steel pins, gives the pavilion a spatial impression of a living and valuable creation of the human endeavour through the centuries in the heart of Europe - in the lands of the Czech Republic.

The visitor enters the exposition under the structure of the Old Town Square. A city hovers over the wavy terrain which emanates from the land and cannot exist without it. The real city as well as the exposition is made up by the fruits produced by our civilization and protecting our cities. These are framed in light suspended cubes just as the architecture frames our real world.

The pavilion visitors will walk on soft grass or will rest on a terrain wave's crest while at the same time observing a symmetric network of the streets overhead. The visitors move among the city blocks, seek and discover Fruits of Civilization - bright exhibits. The author of this idea, Mgr. Lenka Lindaurová, had compiled a team of mostly young but often internationally recognized creative minds, through whom she will introduce important civilization's themes. The accent here is put on the attractive, almost magic form: the visitor should be enrapt, emotionally touched and surprised. The exhibit does not attack the visitors; it absorbs them.

Since the aim of our participation at EXPO is a cultural as well as business presentation of the Czech Republic, part of the pavilion will be a boutique and a VIP restaurant designed by Ing. Arch. Tomáš Veselý. A new item in the promotion of the country's economy will be a "Meeting Room" found in the pavilion. During the Exposition, this enclosed space will be used to welcome significant Czech Republic's statesmen and contractual entrepreneurial partners to organize individual meetings with their Chinese counterparts. The Meeting Room will also serve for the meetings with other exhibiting countries' representatives. The space may be adapted according to particular meetings. It will become a place where the entrepreneurial entities and the Czech Republic's economic and business successes can be freely presented, which would not be otherwise possible in the Czech Republic's exposition space considering the directives of the World's Expositions.