Malaysia Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010

The Shanghai Expo is something that interest me greatly, but knowing the cost of flight and accomodation would be high, I have decided to stay put, browse through the interweb and save up for other trips to come. Being a Malaysian, I would obviously try and support the design concept being put through for the Expo.

My initial reaction was somewhat unpatriotic, "Ugh, the ugly one, yes, that would be the Malaysian Pavilion". I would not say that it is the worse of the bunch, but they are given the opportunity to create something conceptual that would boggles everyone's mind. I know the country likes to use culture and tradition as a basis of design, but that does not mean we need to limit the creativity of design. Go wild, open up abit, show the world that we are creative in different aspects, not limiting ourselves to just dance routines and traditional costume design.

I am rubbish with local history, but there is even an arguement that this traditional house concept does not even belong to us. I am not going to debate about this, but if 80% of the forums say so, and 95% say its ugly, I would trust them. The numbers are based on my assumptions, as I could not see any positive comments, sorry. I am easily attracted to pretty pictures, and the only thing that interest me is how the roof would glow at night. It seems pretty transparent, looking based on the front entrance, the silhouette of the back roof can be seen. But as usual, they never seem to have a problem in disappointing you.

This is the Malaysian Pavilion once it is build. The 'extravagant' shiny transparent roof is no where to be seen, the exaggerated roof top has been lowered drastically and this pretty much depicts the same old traditional house which has a coloured pattern roof instead of zink or coconut leaves, with a red chimney attached. Very, very disappointing.

Our friendly neighbour, Singapore, however manage to come up with one of the most exciting pavilion that is being exhibit, in my opinion. Why can't our country be more daring in design? Is it not possible to have a competition to decide the designer for the expo? This way you would not only get the best possible concept design, but giving the young generations the chance to shine. No wonder we are moving away, thats right, you heard me.

The final product of a building should always look very similar to its rendered perspective, what you see is what you get. The UK pavilion is also the sexiest pavilion to be exhibit, with a 5 hours queue, it is 2nd most anticipated pavilion, behind the China pavilion, I think. The downside, however was the interior, apparently being to deep and abstract for visitors to understand. My trip to Tuileries has given me another simple perspective towards visitors, your product has to be simple to understand but yet mind boggling, something elementary but provides a big impact.

The Spain pavilion is one of my favourites. Instead of adopting their own culture as an inspiration, they look at Asian weaving as a design drive which led to the design of the facade. I thought Malaysia had weaving too? Anyways, this elegent building was also featured at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, 2009 and won an award.

I do hope the design merit in Malaysia will continue to grow, and we the younger generations do have the potential and talent to shine, and that is perfectly shown when students from Malaysia has won the 2010 Evolo Skyscraper International Design Competition. I do not know any other architects apart from Ken Yeang being known globally, but that I believe this will change and it starts now.