With the country’ producing great composers like Mozart and Schubert and being home to the Wiener Symphoniker and the Vienna State Opera, the main attraction of Austria’s pavilion for the 2025 World Exposition will be music.
Under the theme “Composing the Future,” the pavilion will welcome visitors with a sculptural spiral rising into the sky — a gigantic musical score constructed with wooden boards screwed into place.
Image of the Austrian pavilion for the 2025 World Expo. (Photo courtesy of Expo Austria/BWM Designers & Architects)(Kyodo)
The object that looks like a red ribbon will lead into the pavilion to take visitors on a journey to explore what the Austrian government calls “the diversity and creativity” of the European nation as well as ideas that contribute to responsible and sustainable future development.
“This is both an eye-catching visual beacon and the guide through the exhibition,” said Johann Moser, architect of the pavilion.
Johann Moser, architect of the Austrian pavilion for the 2025 World Expo. (Copyright: BWM Designers & Architects)(Kyodo)
The musical staff uses screws, instead of glue, allowing individual components of the spiral to be disassembled and reassembled multiple times. That means the components can be recycled after the expo, according to Austrian government officials.
Music has been a part of Austrian-Japanese relations from their outset, with then Emperor Franz Josef gifting the Japanese Emperor Meiji a Bosendorfer grand piano in 1869.
The use of wood for the spiral sculpture reflects bilateral economic relations, as wood is a highly valued export product from Austria, according to pavilion designers.
The pavilion will have an exhibition space of over 200 square meters, with one of the highlights being a room named the Cathedral of the Future, where visitors can play a musical instrument and artificial intelligence will gather those sounds to compose music.
Image of the Austrian pavilion for the 2025 World Expo. (Photo courtesy of Expo Austria/BWM Designers & Architects)(Kyodo)
A plan to offer Japanese sake, Austrian wine and music together is under arrangement to represent the cultures of Japan and Austria, according to Philipp Gady, vice president of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.
The Vienna Boys Choir will perform at the expo site on May 23, Austria’s national day.