Spanish Pavilion, Expo Milan 2015

Production of the entire building and exhibitions representing Spain at Expo 2015 in Milan. Pavilion architecture and installations as well as the exhibition architecture and elements. Management, running and maintenance of the pavilion, combined with the organisation of the human resources for these tasks, between 1 May and 31 October 2015. Dismantling at the end of the fair.

With this pavilion destined to represent Spain at the next World’s Fair, Empty continues its long history of participating in international exhibitions, which began in 1992 in Seville with the installation of the exhibition Art and Culture circa 1492 at the Monastery of Santa María de las Cuevas, continued at the Lisbon 1998, Aichi 2005, Zaragoza 2008 and Shanghai 2010 expos, and has culminated in this recent invitation to take part in Milan 2015 by constructing a brand-new, 2,500-squaremetre pavilion and setting up the exhibition inside.

The central theme of this expo is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, inspired by one of the UN Millennium Development Goals, while Spain’s particular theme, “The Language of Flavour”, will be expressed in a building resembling an enormous greenhouse with structural wooden porticoes, where the contrast between different cladding materials and open and closed spaces will illustrate the blend of tradition and innovation that characterises Spain’s cuisine and food industry.

The exhibition itself will revolve around three main pillars: the strengths of our food production chain, the quality and diversity of our diet, and sustainable agriculture as a tool for preserving the natural landscape and developing alternative tourism models.