architecture

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Really!?!

They made a book about this building?

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[US Pavilion, rendering | image source]

The USA Pavilion Expo 2010 Shanghai: Rising to the Challenge "captures the thrilling experiences inside America's great hall," what it further calls "one of the top experiences at the Shanghai Expo."

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I'm more wont to side with the "Innovation Consultant ... intimately involved with the contorted process that resulted in the current USA Pavilion" who, in his one-star review, basically reveals the book, like the pavilion, to be propaganda. This certainly isn't a surprise, given that the architecture surely doesn't merit a book-length study, leaving it to be a commemorative book painting as rosy a picture as possible. But don't most participating countries do the same, to a lesser degree perhaps, with their pavilions and exhibitions? This is a case of the platitudes extending into book form for those who weren't one of the "lucky five million or so of [the 70 milliono] fair-goers" to experience "the spirit of America and the splendor of an epic showcase."

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