Expo Zaragoza 2008 :: Pavilions

Scientific Directors:	Rinio Bruttomesso, Joan Alemany
Architectural and design team:	Italo Rota
Surface Area:	1,240 m²
Capacity:	1,000 persons/hour

The Cities on Water Themed Plaza is a circular building, with a diameter of 46.4m and a surface area of 1,647.5 m2.

During Expo Zaragoza 2008 it will house the exhibition A journey along rivers and canals, a look at different cities that are related in some way with water.

The Cities on Water themed plaza looks at water as an element that coexists with the urban space. As such it offers a journey around different cities that have some kind of relationship with water. It attempts to study and analyse the urban development framework that is established between the city land and the body of water, whether this be a river, canal, lake or the sea.

Narrative resources make use of elements of surprise and appeal to the emotions. The spaces and installations set off situations that the make visitors participate and interpret the different scenes. The resources on display are very diverse: audiovisual formats, models, large murals and photographs, piped theme music soundtrack, lights creating an atmosphere closely linked to the expographic supports and series of devices that illustrate concepts in a simple and surprising way.

Cities on Water Itinerary

1. Garden The entrance to Cities on Water is bordered by a garden that serves as a peep hole to give visitors a glimpse inside the pavilion. This garden tries to show the complex unity between the city and nature and, specifically, how nature tries to survive in a hostile environment.
2. Show water. This is a large room with a central pond. Five branched structures emerge from the ground representing trees. Large discs with photographs on both sides of the city at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries hang from the trees.
3. Friendly water. This is an audiovisual show combining futuristic landscape transformations linked to current experiments (such as the construction of an artificial island or an airport on the sea) with everyday activities such as watering flowers on the terrace of a high-rise building.
4. Star water. The room is dedicated to two cities that have been transformed through their relationship with water. Seoul and Barcelona. A show full of colour and movement.
5. Future water. This is a large, futuristic space with twenty stalactites and four stalagmites, each one with a monitor transmitting a message about different future projects mixing fact with fiction.
6. Zaragoza. The journey ends in an exhibition room dedicated to Zaragoza. On entering the room, the visitor comes to a space where the floor, walls and ceilings are dark. A terracotta vessel in the centre of the room tells the story of the city’s evolution in a spiral form. Visitors is given a panoramic view of the Ebro, its banks and architectural features such as the Bridge Pavilion or the Pilar Basilica.

The pavilion housing the exhibition designed by Studio Italo Rota attempts to represent a metaphor for urban complexity, a feature of the contemporary city. It offers ephemeral architecture that lacks both continuous walls or a plaster ceiling. The play of transparency and bright colours in the pavilion blends in with the view of the river to create a spectacular visual unit.

Scientific Directors

Rinio Bruttomeso
Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the University IUAV of Venice since 1990 and Director of the Città d’Acqua International Centre in Venice since 1989. Curator of the "Cities on Water", "New Waterfronts" and "City – Port" at the Architecture Biennale in Venice, Buenos Aires and Palermo, respectively since 2004 and director of Portus magazine. He was also a member of the International Experts' Committee for the Shanghai Urban Development Plans in 2001. He was advisor to the Italian Government Commissioner for the Italian Pavilion at Expo '98 Lisbon.

Joan Alemany
Part-time Professor in the University of Barcelona and specialist consultant in Urban Planning and Port Economics. Alemany is currently carrying out several studies on economic relations and organisation, management and finance of port urban renewal projects and the establishment of new Logistics Activities Zones in large commercial ports. Among his earlier works, special mention should be given to the design of the Puerto Matadero Redevelopment Plan for Buenos Aires and an advisory role for the Navigation Pavilion at Expo '92 in Seville from 1998 to 1992.

Design and architecture

Italo Rota
After several years of activity in Paris at the end of the 1990s, the Italo Rota studio was located in Milan. The Rota studio is currently producing designs for the N.E.W.S. exhibition (May 2006 at Triennale, Milan) and DNA (August 2006 at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). It is also working on the project for JustCavalli boutiques around the world. Some of their latest works were the design stage for the medal ceremonies for the Turin Winter Olympics, including all services and structures in the Piazza Castello.

For further information go to: www.studioitalorota.it