One of the world’s largest wooden elevated structures has been completed in Japan well in time to provide millions of visitors stunning views of the World Expo site on a man-made island in Osaka city.
Visitors to Expo 2025 Osaka will be able to walk along the 2km timber structure that rises to a height of 20 metres and is on Yumeshima, an artificial island in the southern bay area of the city.
Called the Grand Ring, the cedar wood structure is the main symbol of the Expo that will take place from April to October 2025 and welcome an estimated 28 million visitors, according to Japanese authorities.
The gigantic canopy encircles the 155-hectare Expo exhibition grounds and gives viewers a bird’s eye view of the site, panoramic sea views and a commanding view of a forest being created inside the main site.
The world’s fair is being held in Japan after the success of the Expo 2020 Dubai, the first in the Middle East and North Africa region, which drew more than 24 million visits over six months.
Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, who designed the massive wooden structure, also created the masterplan for the Expo site. He said his vision was to build a “connection between the earth and the sky".
Under one sky
The ingenuity of the construction is that when visitors look up it will be as if the massive ring creates a border around the sky.
“I wanted to create a symbolic moment so all people when they look up, they see one sky,” Mr Fujimoto told The National. “When you walk on the ring, it’s amazing because it’s like the sky is really purely cut out by the circular shape. It’s as if the big ring is wrapping around the sky.
"This is a strong concept of diversity and unity. When people realise we are all together under one sky, we can feel a connectivity with the entire world.
“The feeling is quite precious with so many different nations gathering at the Expo to pursue our common future and I hope people will enjoy it.”
Mr Fujimoto is known for his technique of combining landscape and architecture in a range of projects that include a music centre in Budapest, and hotels and residences in Japan and China.
His masterplan design incorporates the ring as the main route that people will use to walk to the pavilion, plaza areas below and a zone called the Forest of Tranquility being created with a dense tree cover.
Inspired by Dubai success
Mr Fujimoto had completed the masterplan for the Osaka site when he visited Dubai for Expo 2020. But walking around for several days and tapping into the enthusiasm of the crowds gave him an insight into the importance of the world fair.
“Every moment was like a discovery moment and by visiting Dubai Expo I was really convinced how important a world event the Expo is,” he said.
“It was amazing to feel the atmosphere. It was really crowded and every day from morning to evening I just walked around. I visited almost all the pavilions and I was fascinated by how each country brought in their own uniqueness of culture.
“I had already made a plan for the Osaka Expo so I didn't change anything. But I got a deeper understanding of the meaning of the Expo from the excitement of people visiting the Dubai Expo.”
Tradition with modernity
The ring, which took two years to build, fuses intricate timber craftsmanship of ancient Japanese wooden temples with modern geometric design. Interconnected columns create a play of light and shadow on the pathways below the ring. It acts as a canopy that will protect visitors below from the rain, wind and sun.
“This is the biggest wooden construction in the world so we had to use the latest technology combined with the Japanese more than 1,000-year tradition of wooden construction to support a futuristic design,” Mr Fujimoto said.
“We did multiple mock-ups to test the strength of the joints of the beams and columns as this is of a huge scale.”
Legacy for Osaka
The World Expo is held every five years and often is intrinsically tied to providing a boost to the host city with investments in infrastructure and revitalising culture and businesses.
This will be the third Expo that Japan has hosted and the second time the event has come to Osaka, one of the country’s oldest cities, which held Asia’s first World Expo in 1970.
The theme "Designing a Future Society for Our Lives" addresses themes of building a happy life and devising new technology in health, medicine and sustainability. Japanese officials recently told the Bureau International des Expositions, the governing body of world’s fairs, that the wooden ring was part of the legacy that would remain after the Expo ends.
Yokoyama Hideyuki, Mayor of Osaka city, said his team learnt from the experience of earlier Expos and was conducting field tests to prepare staff to handle participants from more than 160 countries.
“This will be the first Expo on the sea and we have accelerated projects to improve Osaka’s infrastructure as the host city of Expo 2025,” he said. “Our priority is improving preparedness at the site. The ring is part of our future vision, part of the intangible Expo legacy as we are readying to welcome the world.”
