At next year’s World Expo, a grand carnival showcasing different nations’ achievements, the US is planning something unusually quiet.
While the architecture at World’s Fairs, now held every five years, has often been about spectacle — think of London’s cast iron and plate glass “Crystal Palace,” built to host the inaugural 1851 edition — the open, minimalist pavilion design by US firm Trahan Architects for the Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, wants to draw you in with a subtlety and stillness that invites reflection.
“There’s no judgment, there’s no threshold (to cross) — all are invited into a public space,” Trey Trahan, the architecture practice’s founder and CEO, told CNN on Wednesday, shortly before the design was unveiled at the US Ambassador’s residence in Tokyo.