The Island and the Ring

Inaugurated last 13 April, the World Expo of 2025 is being held on the artificial island of Yumeshima, ‘Island of Dreams,’ a tract reclaimed from the sea on Osaka Bay that until recently was an infrastructural void, one which appeared in the 1980s as part of the Technoport Osaka plan, a symbol of Japan’s metropolitan expansion in the second half of the 20th century. The transformation of this piece of land into the venue of an international event marks a decisive moment as much for local urbanism as for the global discourse on ephemeral architecture and the resignification of obsolete industrial environments. In this context, the gesture that binds together the entire fair is the Grand Ring: an annular avenue around the complex, designed – like the scheme within it – by Sou Fujimoto. Built with wood, it not only organizes the visitor route and defines a recognizable horizon in a previously diffuse territory, but also presents itself as a memorable feature of the event: a lightweight, open, unmonumental construction that reformulates the symbolic role usually played by a universal exhibition’s main pavilion. Two walkways – one at ground level, more functional, and the other twelve meters high, more leisurely and landscaped, almost indifferent to the surroundings – offer a less common experience of the premises...[+]