Expo 2020 Dubai: Icy Finnish landscapes pitch a tent

Gulf News

For the fourth year in a row, the 2021 World Happiness Report crowned Finland the happiest country in the world amid a raging pandemic.  Curious onlookers now have the opportunity to flock to the heart of the scene at Expo 2020 Dubai to unravel the secrets of the Finnish lifestyle on display at the Finland Pavilion in the Mobility District of the world fair.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/1.82364641  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #Expo2020Dubai #Finland

Transcript

00:00So, first of all, the design of Finland Pavilion was inspired by the thin white layer of first

00:23snow that covers Finnish landscape at the beginning of every winter, and we aimed to

00:29bring a fragment of Finnish nature to the deserts of UAE and Dubai, and therefore from

00:35the outside the pavilion looks like a pure, simple, white structure.

00:41And secondly, we were also inspired by the nomadic heritage of Arabic cultures, therefore

00:46the main entrance is shaped in the form of entrance to the tent, so in fact this pavilion

00:54is a white snow cape, but it's also a snow tent where two cultures of Finland and Arabic

01:01world meet.

01:02And as you can see, we are here standing in the wooden heart, central space for best meetings

01:12at Expo.

01:13It's an element of surprise hidden inside the pavilion.

01:18These I think are the three key messages where the architectural concept of Finland Pavilion

01:24and Dubai Expo was created.

01:26Yes, so to sum it up, Finnish nature, Finnish design from wood, and nations meeting, cultures

01:35meeting.

01:36I think the concept in this one, there are of course, when Finns are designing or building

01:42things abroad, we like to bring our ideology of nature and how we feel close to nature

01:50and the elements that we are inspired from are always natural elements like water, sky

01:59or wind, rocks, wood and forest.

02:02So that's pretty much something that always in one form or another is being presented.

02:11But I guess the collaboration in this one has been a unique one.

02:15So partnering companies and all the other designers that were collaborating with us,

02:21Sun Effect, Flat Light and Foto Design.

02:23So the four of us and Business Finland as the main company behind this, that was something unique.

03:46Yeah, well, first of all, coming from Finland, we tried to think about our concepts in a

03:56simple and intelligent way.

03:58And I think that helped us a lot that we started with a relatively simple idea with also an

04:05element of functionality embedded in the core of the idea.

04:10So that helped us when we were, of course, facing many challenges with understanding the local

04:16authorities, the special export environment regulations.

04:21But we overcome this, we did successfully solve these issues one by one.

04:27And here we are standing today, of course, happy to see our results that we have built together.

04:35It's always when building or designing abroad, it's an adventure.

04:39You don't know the local building regulations or what the author is, what kind of documents they require.

04:46So it's always an adventure.

04:47But we also had a local company helping us with that.

04:51So all the obstacles were finally won.

04:55Well, I think that as Finns, we like to not make too big noise of ourselves.

05:02We don't want to be in the spotlight in a way.

05:06But we wanted to create something different for the Expo visitors.

05:11We want to create a place for serenity and silence and cooling down.

05:16And a place to take it easy from all the hassle and all the colors and lights in the other parts of the Expo.

05:26So at least I'm expecting that people will hopefully find this place to come to calm down and cool down

05:33and have a moment for themselves and maybe have a good deep conversation with a friend or someone new they just met here.

05:41And naturally the pavilion itself, I think, is a showcase to present Finnish values behind statistically the world's happiest country.

05:52So those are, of course, based on mutual trust, respect, togetherness.

06:00So this is something we try to bring to Expo.

06:03And naturally in terms of the spatial atmosphere, we try to bring a fragment of Nordic calmness, serenity.

06:10A place where we can talk face to face in peace and enjoy and share happy moments.

06:30you

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