The Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo is situated in Zone C of the Pudong Expo site, surrounded by other Nordic and European country pavilions. The 3000 square-meter pavilion is designed by Swedish architectural firm Sweco according to the Swedish theme of “The Spirit of Innovation”. The total budget for the Swedish pavilion is around 150 million SEK, slightly more than half of which is contributed by the Swedish business sector. Commissioner General for the Swedish pavilion is Annika Rembe. Construction of the Swedish pavilion began on the April 20, 2009 and the pavilion was officially inaugurated on May 1, 2010, the day of the World Expo’s opening.

Themes

The overall theme of the Swedish participation in the Shanghai Expo 2010 is “The Spirit of Innovation”. The architecture of the pavilion, the exhibition, and the activities hosted by the pavilion during the Expo are all grounded in this theme. With the official keywords sustainability, innovation and communication, this theme aims to showcase Sweden as a nation of problem solvers, specifically in the sphere of urban environment and the quality of everyday life. According to General Commissioner Annika Rembe, the pavilion shows how Sweden has managed to develop so far, stressing Swedish ways of working, especially cooperation and a faith in creativity. One of the most important symbols for the Swedish pavilion is the cartoon character Pippi Longstocking

Pippi Longstocking

Pippi Longstocking is a fictional character in a series of children's books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, and adapted into multiple films and television series...

. According to exhibition designer Carin Lembre, in order to be innovative like Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He is the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments...

, you need to be creative like Pippi Longstocking. “The Spirit of Innovation is created when, like Pippi, you dare to be brave, dare to try new ways of thinking and dare to make mistakes.”

Architecture

The design of the pavilion was submitted by the Swedish architectural firm Sweco, under the supervision of chief architects Johannes Tüll and Christer Stenmark. It is a three-storey construction made up of four separate cube-like structures connected by elevated walkways. The first and second floors house the public exhibition, while the entire third floor is dedicated to conference areas and related facilities. A small café and a souvenir shop are located on the first floor. One of the most distinguishing design features is the laminated-wood outdoor atrium of the entrance hall, along with the roof-top glass-floor bar situated on top of it. The outside design combines an outer steel shell representing the street network of Stockholm with large panorama photography of Swedish forests on the inward-facing outer wall surfaces. This design is grounded in the concept of a meeting between city, nature and mankind.

Exhibition

The Swedish exhibition, designed as a walk through five halls of the Swedish pavilion, aims to introduce the country of Sweden from the perspectives of sustainability and innovation. The entrance of the pavilion, the Swedish Atmosphere Hall, contains images of Swedish people and nature. The second exhibition hall, the Hall of Environmental Challenges, introduces some cases of environmental problems faced by Sweden and the solutions that have already been implemented towards them. The third hall, the Hall of Solutions, shows examples of products to be found in an ecologically sustainable city and a hands-on kitchen that demonstrates the contributions everyone can make to the environment. From this hall, one of the pavilion’s most popular attractions, a giant slide, leads down to the Hall of Spirit of Innovation, where fifty Swedish inventions and designs are displayed on pictures. This hall also contains a number of swings that visitors can try, and aims to deliver the message that true innovation comes from play. The last exhibition hall, the Innovative Society Hall, lets visitors interact with machines and also features the flexible space of the “Innovation Stage”, where activities and competitions are held at regular intervals.

Visitors and activities

By mid-September, the Swedish pavilion had received over two million visitors. Except for the permanent exhibition, for the duration of the World Expo, several activities on sustainability and innovation have been organized by the Swedish pavilion, including a SymbioCity forum, discussing the cities of the future, and a children’s literature seminar.

External links

• Official website of the Swedish pavilion