A month ahead of Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japanese firm Mitsubishi Jisho Design has erected its Mitsubishi Pavilion, the first building to greet East Gate visitors to the artificial island in Osaka Bay where the world fair will take place from 13 April.
Intended to embody a “mother ship hovering just above the ground”, according to Jisho, the pavilion will offer 2,075 m2 of private sector exhibition space with video installations exploring the theme of life. That motif is reflected by a design aesthetic centred on sustainability, producing a fully demountable building that showcases reusable and reclaimable steel and timber, and reimagines them as primary finishing materials, held together by minimal welding and bolting.
Sandbags and tarpaulin used for decor
“We have created a ‘short circular’ that gives temporary materials used during construction a new role that puts them in a new spotlight,” chief architect Takushu Arai told Dezeen. All decorative features follow the same brief, with polycarbonate panels and steel scaffolding poles used for cladding alongside sandbags, blue tarpaulin, boarding and chain mesh.
The result is a two-storey volume that lightly occupies its partially sunken elliptical rhombus space, with no obvious front facade, since the pavilion is meant “to be visually engaging from both the main plaza on the east gate side as well as the peripheral roads on the opposite side”.
Traditional Japanese veranda
Traditional Japanese elements have also been included. An engawa or veranda has been created to feel “suspended in midair” at one rhombus tip, while below, in the basement, visitors can relax in a shady “Waiting Park”, where shelter from sunlight and the flow of cool air have been prioritised.
According to Jisho, talks are already underway to reuse the building’s wooden top section in another building. If and when the Mitsubishi Pavilion is demounted, the minimal contact between the ground and the structure should leave behind an undamaged site, which will be replenished using the same soil excavated in the first place that has been specially retained.
Expo 2025 Osaka has been masterplanned by Sou Fujimoto Architects under a “Designing Future Society” banner. Their own wooden “Grand Ring” will embrace the entire Expo site, containing, among others, a Saudi Arabian pavilion designed by Foster and Partners, a glass spiral building from Czechia, a winged dune-like structure from Kuwait and a “rising moon” from The Netherlands.
