With just one month to go until the opening of Shanghai Expo 2010, the largest Expo ever held, the UK is releasing images of its acclaimed Pavilion (Photos by Daniele Mattioli). Sir Andrew Cahn, Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and the senior official responsible for the UK’s contribution to Shanghai Expo, said: “The UK Pavilion is already one of Expo’s star attractions. It has not only generated huge interest in China – and a nickname, the ‘Dandelion’, a Chinese good luck symbol.”


Seventy million people are expected to visit Shanghai Expo, which opens to the public on 1 May for six months. Many millions are expected to visit the UK Pavilion alone. The theme of Shanghai Expo is “Better City, Better Life”. This inspired British designer Thomas Heatherwick to use the UK’s expertise in urban planning to create a unique and open space. Instead of creating a building covering the entire football pitch-sized site, he created a park in which people could relax in one of the world’s busiest urban spaces.


The Seed Cathedral sits in the centre of the UK Pavilion’s site, 20 metres in height, formed from 60,000 slender transparent rods, each 7.5 metres long and each encasing one or more seeds at its tip. During the day, they act as optic fibres and draw daylight inwards to illuminate the interior. At night, light sources inside each rod allow the whole structure to glow. As the wind moves past, the building and its optic “hairs” gently move to create a dynamic effect. The seeds have been sourced from China’s Kunming Institute of Botany, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership.