Austrian Pavilion at the EXPO 2008 in Zaragoza | Christoph Hinterreitner

The Austrian Pavilion at the EXPO 2008 in Zaragoza was designed by an interdisciplinary team formed by SOLID architecture Michael Strauss and Scott Ritter. For the EXPO 2008 the participating countries rented spaces in buildings provided by the organizer. The room made available for the Austrian pavilion had a semi-circular shape. The central idea of the design concept was to double that shape to the figure of a cylinder by using a floor-to-ceiling mirror. This mirror extended along the length of the room and doubled a digital 180° projection on the curved interior wall into a 360° panorama. By means of digital projection the panorama underwent permanent changes. Transposition of the historical panorama building In terms of building typology the Austrian pavilion transposed the historical panorama building into the present. The viewer's platform in the middle and the three-dimensionally designed foreground of the historical panorama architecture were merged into a white landscape. This landscape was dissolved into contour lines and became the exhibition area of the pavilion. Abstract landscape as exhibition space The abstract form of the landscape made the exhibition space become part of the changing panoramic projections. Surrounded by mountain tops it turned into a snow-covered hilltop. The projection of a forest turned it into a green clearing.