Balancity- The living German City.
The Expo is running now since a couple of month. It came out that the German Pavilion is one of the most favourite Pavilions at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. In the morning there is a big run from all entrances and subway stations to the German Pavilion. The question “Where is the German Pavilion” is been ask 1000 times a morning. That lead to special signs which mention the directions and distances to the Pavilion. Everyday there are around 25000 visitors visiting the Pavilion. Watching the exhibition, the show, eating German food, drinking German beer and taking pictures with one of 194 hosts and hostess. But how is Germany presenting themself to the world? How looks the exhibition alive?
I introduce you to the different rooms of the German Pavilion. After entering the German Pavilion you will go through the Landscape. Along the way you can see very large postcards of each German federal state. At the same time, these postcards can serve as photo-taking points.
The visitors reach the inside of the city, the path slowly leads to a ramp, moving past interactive displays, which offer impressions of life in Germany for all senses. Via explanatory texts, exciting facts and figures on German cities, the visitors can find out more about the individual images – the sounds, sights, feelings and even the scents of Germany.
After the Urban Periphery the visitors enter a moving walkway passing through a pulsating tunnel and, via multimedia presentations, they are drawn into a sea of urban images and sounds: trains, cars, buses and loudspeaker announcements giving a feeling of the citylife in Germany.
The end of the tunnel opens up onto a deep-blue underwater room where visitors experience the sounds of water, air bubbles and shimmering reflections. They break through the surface of the water above and enter a fascinating futuristic urban environment: the Hamburg harbour with daylight atmosphere, blue sky, the cry of seagulls, people. Spectacular skylines emerge and typical harbour sounds resound.
From the harbour you will come into the Planning Office, with oversized plans, models, sketches and urban plans – as if drifting in the wind. The theme here is innovative, sustainable urban planning and development, depicting the urban infrastructure as a living process. At the end of the room, visions emerge: new types of urban life, ideas on how people of various ages, lifestyles and nationalities could live together in the future.
The Garden shows images, sounds and three-dimensional objects, showing the significance of private green spaces, hobbies and moments of relaxation in german modern, pulsating metropolis. Children can access the next room via a huge slide.
A large, dark room welcomes visitors on their journey through balancity. Shelftype structures reaching up to the ceiling are filled with famous inventions,design products and technology developments from Germany.
Visitors are led by moving walkways to the factory where conveyors belts cross each other at different levels above them. These are carrying sustainable innovations, products, processes created by German companies and institutions. At interactive scanner stations, visitors can find out more about the objects functions. Another area of the factory presents futuristic material developments from Germany, where visitors are invited to touch, feel, smell and directly experience these materials.
In clear contrast to the Factory, is the next room. There you experiance a parkworld up side down, with a fresh breeze, the scent of flowers and birds chirping. You walk on the sky. When the visitor rais their head they can see the gras and flowers. Inside the flowers you can see a 360 degree view of a german Park.
The journey through the city leads visitors away from the daylight towards an environment with stage lighting. A variety of cabinets open up views onto cultural projects, where visitors can experience the significance of culturelife in Germany. Carneval, Choir and Literature can be experienced in various interactiv ways.
In the City Square the artist Konrad Kuechenmeister is giving a audio-visuell feeling of the live in a Metropolis.
The Forum in balancity is the bridge between Germany and China, a place for dialogue and communication. It will feature the “Germany and China – Moving ahead together” project. The Forum is the last room before the popular Energy Source.
“The visitors enter an awesome, energy-laden room filled with an exciting light choreography. Then they spread out across three galleries from where they can see the room’s focal point: a sphere. The sphere has a diameter of three metres and its surface is covered with around 400,000 LEDs. During the seven-minute show, images, colours and shapes appear on it, symbolising German ideas related to the EXPO theme of “Better City, Better Life”.
