25.5.2010
Pavilion of the Netherlands at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai
The Happy Street is the answer on the question Better City Better Life. I think that origins in a good street, with mix functions, different forms of buildings. A street mixed with different types of buildings like a house, a shop, a factory, an office, a farm, a petrol station, a sportfield, a garage, forms the condition for a social life.
I wanted to make a street and then I thought maybe I could lift it up and let it curl so I can make a longer street. Then I got an eight form… like a silkworm making a cocoon.
Well of course it is a street so it will bring you somewhere, but more like a road in chinese landscape paintings, very harmonious. It is romantic architecture, it is a pavilion to kiss.
It is an open pavilion with no door. The interior is outside. People can just gaze at it, it is a wunderfull steel construction, made by a very good structural designer: Rijk Blok. He made this small idea of me into a totally creative construction. In this case that the pavilion is being build is more important than the idea.