Japanese firm Mitsubishi Jisho Design has completed the demountable Mitsubishi Pavilion for the Expo 2025 Osaka, captured in these photos shared exclusively with Dezeen.
Mitsubishi Pavilion will be the first building visible to visitors entering via the East Gate, which is one of two entrance points to the Expo 2025 Osaka site on the Yumeshima artificial island.
Described by the Mitsubishi Jisho Design as “a mother ship hovering just above the ground”, it will contain video exhibits exploring the theme of life when the event opens on 13 April 2025.
According to the studio, the main ambition for the 2,075-square-metre Mitsubishi Pavilion was for it to be demountable, leading the team to utilise reusable materials including timber and steel.
The pavilion’s decorative finishes are also reclaimable, with the studio utilising a palette of “temporary materials that are typically employed only during construction, reimagining them as primary finishing materials”.
Meanwhile, to minimise permanent damage to the site, contact between the building and the ground is minimised and any excavated soil has been retained to repair the site after the event.
“We have created a ‘short circular’ that gives temporary materials used during construction a new role that puts them in a new spotlight,” chief architect Takushu Arai told Dezeen.
“The selection focuses on materials that are familiar to construction workers. The steel members used for the columns and beams are bolted together with minimal welding, with a view to ease of dismantling after the Expo,” he continued.
“The steel pipe piles used for the foundations are recyclable. The wooden structure at the top is being considered for reuse in another building after the exhibition.”
Mitsubishi Pavilion comprises two levels above ground and one below, with the entrance marked by a partially sunken elliptical space.
This entrance area is sheltered by a projecting platform which forms part of the rhombus-shaped upper levels.
There is deliberately no front facade, with the pavilion intended “to be visually engaging from both the main plaza on the east gate side as well as the peripheral roads on the opposite side”.
“The site allocated to us was an irregular pentagon” said Arai. “After studying the building structure to satisfy the required exhibition space inside and in line with the exhibition theme, a two-storey volume was required. After studying the design to fit the pentagonal site, a rhombus shape was the best fit.”
Among the temporary and reusable construction materials used as decorative finishes for the pavilion are polycarbonate panels, steel scaffolding poles used as cladding and sandbags. Blue tarpaulin, oriented strand board (OSB) and chain mesh have also been used.
Inside, the Mitsubishi Pavilion will host a mix of exhibits exploring the theme of life, including a “video experience” across two theatres on its top floors.
There is also a space called Sankaku Park, which sits at one tip of the rhombus and is designed as a seating area that “feels as if it is suspended in midair”. It is one of several spaces in the pavilion intended to evoke an engawa – a type of veranda found in traditional Japanese houses.
The basement area, named the Waiting Park, is intended as a shaded space in which visitors can sit and relax.
“The design blocks direct sunlight from entering the space and facilitates the flow of cool air,” the studio said. “The result is a shaded and comfortable waiting area that all visitors can enjoy.”
Mitsubishi Jisho Design, formerly known as Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei, is the oldest architectural firm in Japan. Elsewhere in Japan, it is currently also designing Japan’s tallest skyscraper, the supertall Torch Tower skyscraper in Tokyo.
Its Mitsubishi Pavilion is one of the “Pavilions for Private Sectors” that will feature at the Expo 2025 Osaka, which has been masterplanned by Sou Fujimoto Architects in line with the theme titled Designing Future Society.
The Expo site and its pavilions will encircled by The Grand Ring, a vast wooden structure conceived be Sou Fujimoto Architects, which it recently revealed in a series of construction photos.
Among the national pavilions revealed so far include a cluster of angular volumes for Saudi Arabia that Foster and Partners is modelling on the kingdom’s traditional villages and a “canyon” designed by Trahan Architects for the USA, which both featured in our roundup of thirteen national pavilions designed for Expo 2025 Osaka.
The photography is by Nacasa & Partners Inc.
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