With the Spain Pavilion, architect Benedetta Tagliabue of EMBT created drama in architectural form. From a first glimpse of the building’s snakelike, basket-covered form to the climactic view of a 6.5-meter-tall animated sculpture of a baby, she orchestrated a theatrical event for visitors. Tagliabue opened the show with a façade made out of over 8,000 wicker panels woven by craftsmen in Shandong Province. Workers stripped and treated willow stems to produce a range of panel colors, and arranged the colors to form Chinese characters, which bring a tiger-skin pattern to an already fierce façade. The effect of the whole is only slightly marred by the many distracting, if necessary, “No Smoking” signs.
A circular plaza marks the entrance to the building and splits it into a wing of exhibition space and a wing with offices and a tapas restaurant. From the plaza, visitors funnel in, making the entrance not only dramatic but also a bit scary with so many people crowded together. They arrive at a long cavelike tunnel, whose rounded, rough walls are used as giant projection screens. Here, bones hang from the ceiling and a flamenco dancer jumps to life from a supposed slumber on the floor stage. Then visitors move into a high-ceilinged room sliced by five long, thin video screens and enclosed by dark walls finished with what appears to be a cross between lace and lava. Finally the route opens into a bright, open space dominated by the giant baby (created by Spanish director Isabel Coixet) and more wicker panels.
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