EXPO 2005

Motif: Logo Croatia EXPO 2005, saltworks in Pag, 1975, photo by Damir Fabijanić WORLD EXPOSITION CROATIA EXPO 2005 Following the two more than successful appearances at world exhibitions in Lisbon and Hannover, Croatia is participating at the world exposition in Aichi in Japan. The motto of the exposition, “Nature’s Wisdom”, is congenial to the country that is at the same time the major technological power as well as being devout to nature. Both of the previous Expo challenges taught Croatia about the advantages of a certain minimalism, density, remarkableness and poeticism. Though it is possible, by the means of electronic information instruments, to communicate and represent everything everywhere, the meaning of arriving on the spot is a unique experience that strikes upon the soul and draws to the country that is being presented. One could say that world expositions, abstract places and artificial worlds, actually renew an interest for actual places. Primarily because they create them. National pavilions should therefore be the quintessence of national assets and advantages, and so far Croatia has, in this sense, excellently struck its right measure and even overcome it. And though it is hard to maintain the high level and at the same time avoid repeating oneself, the project of the authors’ group of Damir Fabijanić, Dalibor Martinis and the architectural studio 3LHD that will represent us this year, is an exceptionally fortunate combination that will allow a peaceful expectance of waiting for the corresponding resonance. When Croatia published the tender for the EXPO theme “A drop of water”, there were two reasons underlying this decision. The first one was that by the interpretation of the water motif at the previous expositions we have created our first school. This is the reason that nowadays we can say we abound in the presently precious resource that marks us as a privileged zone on the globe. This “drop of water”, the suggestion of a dense and closed form, the logic of construction and freshness of presentation, can have a variety of explanations. It could mean the life of an underground stream, the luxury of a swamp, water as the source of energy, communication, memory. It could be a lake, saltworks, water in its relationship to the sun, the deepest and most extraordinary relationship. And it is explicitly this excellent idea that was proposed by the authors, by having added to the suggestion of a “drop of water” their “grain of salt”. They have, at the same time, offered a Croatian special feature – the chapter of history of civilisation, a cultural landscape, human labour registered on earth – and they have come up with a motif so much in harmony with the Japanese perception and linked to the EXPO motif in the most profound way. Because: what is the metaphor for wisdom, how do we reach it unless we take it “with a grain of salt”? Each of the Croatian appearances so far was, one could say, a visual-theatrical sensation. What is remembered is the submarine world under the glass floor and the circular film projection. Damir Fabijanić and his partners have taken a step forward in this sense, going toward a happening, intensely drawing the visitors into the “activity” in the pavilion. From the logotype (a square in a circle) to the wonderful, geometrized spectacle of the salt pans (let us not forget what success the raster of the Primošten vineyards scored in Japan at some earlier time) the authors’ idea is comprehensive, integral and coherent. The synaesthetic experience of the sound of the tipper and the spilling of salt, the souvenir: salt crystals in a box as a way of expressing thanks, the dynamics of the platform that raises the visitors above the saltworks basin that turns into a screen for the projection of a film about Croatia, consistently from the bird’s eye view, the possibility for the visitors to witness the almost ritual labour of humanity in the ratio one to one – will definitely be a unique offer on this huge world fair of sensations (that moves the huge tourist market). The stamp dedicated to the Croatian appearance at the EXPO, that is part of the total design of the same author and his team, is in perfect harmony with the minimalist density of the whole. By presenting the human figure in the saltworks landscape, it actually presents the metaphysical harvesting of wisdom and light. If we can be modern and competitive at the world level in anything, we are so this time through this completely well-thought-out design of the Croatian appearance in Aichi.