| Year: | 2023 |
| Location: | Berlin, Germany |
| Service phases: | Design |
| Program: | Conference Hall, Retail, Cafe, Museum |
| Team: | Christoph Langhof, Kyrylo Sledz, Sarath Saitongin |
Exporum
Expo 2035
Expos create new ways of thinking and fantasies for the future. A bid for the World Expo 2035 is a great opportunity for Berlin – and for the format itself. 2035 embodies an idea: it’s about not only bringing the world’s most creative minds to a city, but transplanting them here – long before the Expo actually gets underway. Behind this is the chance of a transnational world exhibition, the first of its kind. Transnational, because the world’s problems can only be tackled cooperatively. That sounds paradoxical at a time when old national values are coming to the fore. But the crises of this world have shown that we cannot go it alone. The time of crisis is pressing, and new thinking is needed.
There is more than a decade until 2035, which can be incredibly valuable for the city if the process of an Expo is set up differently. If international knowledge, business and cultural networks are involved in processes in advance, they can embed their know-how, experience and charisma in the complex structure that is our capital. Only then will the nations of this world not be transients in a finished complex, but long-term catalysts, shapers and designers of a city that not only exhibits, but is exhibited for the first time. Coming to stay would be the best thing that could happen to Berlin.
Berlin itself is the Expo
Because Berlin has a lot to offer. A lively urban society with a unique culture and its very own knowledge of the future – as well as being a start-up hotspot and science location. This creative playground attracts enthusiastic people who bring in new knowledge, find new solutions, because their ideas for the future can grow here, because they are inspired. They meet citizens who want to help shape the future – and who have their own brilliant strategies for the future to offer. Turning Berlin into an irresistible innovation magnet for the next few years, into a knowledge incubator – that must be the goal of an Expo. The city is not the organiser – Berlin itself is the Expo.
A World EXPO is always an occasion to negotiate the future we want to live in. 2035 will also be such a marketplace. Solutions for our coexistence and their completely different versions will be offered there. Visions for what moves people in the different cities and regions. From think big to green communities to high-tech scenarios, from housing in big cities and modern interface mobility, from new energy systems to sustainable architectures and ways of life.
An Expo shows us the various possibilities as well as the respective consequences and implications of these diverse futures. There we will see designs we don’t want and experience visions that make us dream. Berlin as a platform for prototypical sustainable solutions is the best trigger for a world exhibition.
A decentralized Expo
For example, a decentralised Expo suits Berlin – with a central meeting and communication centre located in the heart of the city where the whole world meets. Berlin has always internalised the idea of being a city without a clear centre – indeed, with many centres. Here, the city can directly become the innovator and driver of a new movement. “An original” – and at the same time a prototype. This applies to investments in local infrastructure and the attraction of charged locations – such as Potsdamer Platz, the ICC, the halls of Tegel, Tempelhof, development areas in the south-east of the City etc. This concerns local communities that are involved in the process.
The future has come to stay
Every World’s Fair has created iconographic images and structures: London’s glass palaces, the Eiffel Tower, and the interactive pavilions of Osaka. They were unique opportunities for countries to gather and exchange ideas, from which breakthrough technologies and innovations grew. From there, inventions such as the telegraph, the talkies, the atomic clock and many more began their journey to revolutionize the entire world. To the same extent, world exhibitions promoted the cultural exchange of the participating countries. Their art and traditions were given a platform. Respect, dialogue and ultimately cooperation between nations were the result.
Berlin is an international symbol for overcoming divisions. But Berlin now needs more. It needs something new – a push for innovation – so that Berlin once again becomes a pioneer in shaping and navigating modern lifeworld’s so that the city becomes a hub of the 21st century. Expo 2035 offers this opportunity. If the world’s best brains connect in 2035, when ideals manifest themselves, when ideas materialize, then look to this city. The future has come to stay.
