Expo Zaragoza 2008 :: Pavilions

Surface Area: 7,000 m2
Length: 260 metres
Height: varying between 15 and 30 metres
Width: varying between 8 and 30 metres
Greatest span (distance between supports): 185 metres.
Maximum foundation pile depth: 72.5 metres.
Exhibition area length: 650 metres.
Approximate duration of visit: 45 minutes
Visitors per hour: 1.300

Theme: "Water, a Unique Resource"
Company responsible for exhibition design: Ralph Appelbaum Associates
Scientific directors: Carlos Fernández-Jáuregui and Alberto Crespo Milliet

The Bridge Pavilion is a structure that combines the function of a bridge with those of entrance to the Expo site and exhibition pavilion. It is the venue for an exhibition called "Water, a Unique Resource", which focuses on good water management practices.

The exhibition begins in the pavilion entrance plaza. Here, visitors can contemplate three great cube sculptures made from glass, wood and metal that evoke the reasons why water is a unique resource and one that is essential for life. During the day, the differences between the three sculptures are easily discerned. At night, they throw light onto the plaza.

Once inside the pavilion, visitors discover what the outlook is for the year 2025 if the current patterns of behaviour and consumption are maintained, and why the water crisis is not a problem of scarcity but of governability, resulting from the inefficient administration of this basic resource. Visitors also interact with the exhibition and see how their actions and those of governments can change this outlook.

After passing through this section, visitors reach the last exhibition space. It is a very long, partially covered space into which natural light and the day's weather conditions are let in. At this point, visitors observe differently arranged elements representing diverse sources of information and stories. “1 Water, 1 Right, 1 World” is the overall concept of the exhibition. In this last space, visitors seal their commitment to the idea of water as a human right and they do this by leaving their signature on a long surface. In this way, when Expo has concluded, millions of people will be messengers for and guardians of water as a unique resource to which all humans are entitled.

Built over the River Ebro, the bridge combines three functions: Expo entrance, pedestrian footbridge and exhibition pavilion. It was designed by the Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, with support from Ove Arup. Her project was chosen from among 41 design competition entries.

The bridge is built in a diagonal over the River Ebro, in the vicinity of the Third Millennium Bridge carrying the Rabal Ring Road. It has a gently curving line and connects the Delicias Intermodal Station with the Convention Centre on the Expo site, passing over a small island.

The frame of the Bridge Pavilion is built in steel. Its cladding is inspired by shark scales and creates a natural microclimate in the interior. This is a cooling system where air is exchanged through the building's porous skin. The central support bears nearly half of the structural load – a weight of nearly 7,000 tonnes. The foundations consist of 22 piles, ten of which are located on the central islet, four on the right bank and eight on the left bank.

One of the technical features of this engineering design project lies in the anchoring of the infrastructure. No other building in Spain has central piles that go down as far as those of the Bridge Pavilion: 72.5 metres in depth. Another of the unique features of the pavilion's construction is the spanning process. A total of 140 metres of frame weighing 2,200 tonnes was built on the bank and transferred to its definitive location – a journey of 125 metres. More than 20 people were involved in the process of moving the bridge. Some 150 welders and assembly crew members worked on the left bank throughout all of this process. During this time, work was carried out on both the interior and exterior of the pavilion.

Zaha Hadid and Ove Arup
Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Zaha Hadid became known as the result of her project for a habitable bridge over the River Thames in 1976. It was never built. Her designs that have been built have given her great renown and public acknowledgement. Hadid is defined as an architect who is constantly redrawing the limits of architecture and urban design.
For the design of the Bridge pavilion, Zaha Hadid has had the backing of the British engineering firm of Ove Arup. This team of prestigious architects count among their many works the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and, the 350-metre long London Millennium Footbridge in collaboration with Norman Foster.

Ralph Appelbaum Associates
Created in 1978, this is a team specialising in design and communications with offices in New York, London and Beijing. They have carried out over two hundred projects over the last two decades including museums, commemorative spaces and cultural heritage, social history and natural history projects in more than fifty cities around the world that receiving more than 25 million visitors each year. These are famous works such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or the American Museum of Natural History. The firm is currently undertaking projects in 13 US states and in 10 countries in the rest of the world.