Back in 1889, many countries — Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, and Sweden — RSVP’d with a hard pass to their invitation to the Universal Exposition in France that year. Being monarchies, they didn’t want to participate in a world’s fair celebrating the anniversary of separating royals from their heads. That didn’t deter France from constructing a replica of the infamous Bastille prison for the Expo. The reconstruc

World Expositions launched artists like Gauguin and Manet (whose careers needed a nudge) by exposing them to a wild buffet of influences—weird music, exotic plants, and fauna—fueling their creativity. The 1855 Exposition Universelle popularized portable, pre-mixed paint tubes, which Renoir claimed were essential for Impressionism, letting painters escape the studio and capture fleeting moments anywhere in nature. Even Monet owes his immortal status to a World Expo: In 1889, J

Do you like the Talking Heads? Are you a big fan of David Byrne and “Stop Making Sense”? If so, you can thank World Expos. The founding members of the art-rock group — Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth — met as freshmen at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). But the school never would have existed without the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Back in that year, Helen Metcalf chaired a committee of 35 women who had raised money for Rhode Island’s exhibit at the Expo in Ph

Fifty-two years ago, Expo ’74 opened in Spokane, Washington. If Chicago at the Century of Progress Expo in 1933 was all about technological and scientific advancement and how exalting them would lift us up, then Spokane 41 years at Expo ’74 later was about the environment and how abusing it would drag us down. The US Postal Service commissioned the psychedelic artist Peter Max to create a 10-cent stamp he named “Preserve the Environment.” Max had previously designed the famo

In the history of World Expos there have been four official women’s pavilions. The first was at the 1876 Expo in Philadelphia, when Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, the great-granddaughter of Ben Franklin, helped build a pavilion with money raised from “Martha Washington tea parties,” where women in colonial dress sold teacups for 25 cents that commemorate the Boston Tea Party. The second was at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, with a women’s building designed by MIT gradu

DESIGN: Shifa Zghoul and Ahmad Jubra FABRICATION: Daiko Nitten Jordan may be small, but its impact on the world is huge. It's home to several Dead Sea Scroll discoveries, and archaeologists found there the oldest-known evidence of bread-baking — about 14,000 years old, predating by far the arrival of agriculture. In the same way, the Jordan pavilion at Expo 2025 measured a modest 300 square meters but offered an experience rivaling those that were more than 10 times its size

DESIGN/FABRICATION: TARHIV Architecture & Urbanism Ltd. Almost every pavilion at every World Expo, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, had one thing in common: thermostats locked at a constant temperature. Croatia turned this standard inside out and upside down in a first-of-its-kind pavilion called “Climadiversity” that exported its weather 5,800 miles to Japan. To call attention to the way climate has shaped human culture and the way human culture has shaped climate, the Balkan co

DESIGN/FABRICATION: Bickerstaff.734 FABRICATION: Bickerstaff.734 Oscar Wilde once defined a cynic as a “A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Yet while Russia tries to reduce Ukraine to smoke and rubble, its brutal attacks haven't made a dent in the resilient country's core values — a feat captured in the confines of its small space at Expo 2025. Under the provocative theme “Not for Sale,” Ukraine's pavilion was designed in the guise of a store wh

DESIGN: Atelier Brückner FABRICATION: NUSSLI Group ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTORS: Medienprojekt p2, KLEE Technisches Planungsbüro, Tamschick Media+Space Rooted in its cultural heritage and reinterpreted in timber, brick and clay, the Uzbekistan Pavilion expressed the Expo theme — “Designing Future Society for Our Lives” — through a deep-focused lens of sustainability. The pavilion's exterior walls combined clay from Awajishima island and reclaimed bricks from demolished buildings i

DESIGN: BWM Designers and Architects FABRICATION: NUSSLI Group ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTORS: Kling Klang Klong, Mozarteum Salzburg and Elisabeth Gutjahr, Grosse8, Zone Media, Werkraum Ingenieure ZT GmbH, Graf Holztechnik, Shinohara, Dream Design Factory, Bewunder After Johann Strauss adapted “The Blue Danube” into a completely orchestral version for the 1867 World Expo in Paris, it became the Austrian composer's most beloved work and helped earn him the title of the “waltz king.”

DESIGN/FABRICATION: Lava, NUSSLI Group, insglück Gesellschaft für Markeninszenierung mbH (Content Concept and Exhibition Design) A stylized desert landscape of light, sound, scent, and touch turned Kuwait's pavilion into a children's park that invited visitors of all ages to explore hands-on. At Animals of Kuwait, animated maps revealed the country's most vibrant habitats, while in the Archaeological Sandbox, visitors followed projected desert creatures to uncover artifacts t

DESIGN: Tellart, RAU Architects FABRICATION: Tellart ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTORS: Tellart, RAU Architects, DGMR, Asanuma A thousand invisible threads tie us to other human beings, but rarely do we truly notice how our fates are knitted together. Taking place inside the Netherlands pavilion's central sphere, the film "A New Dawn" used sweeping 360-degree visuals inside the dome to critique humanity's abuse of its diminishing resources. Submerging viewers in stark, almost dystopian

DESIGN: 59 Productions, Blkk Design, Done & Dusted, Fosters + Partners, Insignia Worldwide, Squint Opera, THA Staffing & Beyond Limits, TGP International FABRICATION: RIMOND Japan KK, Ando Hazama, BeWunder, Black Engineering, TAIT, Tanseisha Co., Ltd. Integrating pioneering technologies into “An Epic Journey of New Discoveries,” the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pavilion presented a standout immersive narrative by rethinking their venue as a programmable canvas. Infusing storytelli

DESIGN/FABRICATION: Linen ID Studio, Ltd. It's only fitting that one be appropriately attired for an event as grand as World Expo. For host countries Latvia and Lithuania in the Baltic pavilion, the staff not only dressed for the occasion, but embraced the booth's innovative and sustainable showcase through its dress code. A flowing, parchment-colored wardrobe of trousers, vests, shorts, and shirts was neutral in hue but anything but boring. Modern cuts on sleeve lengths, sim

DESIGN: Lava, Facts and Fiction GmbH FABRICATION: GL Events Building off the Japanese word “wa,” which means both “circle” and “harmony,” Wa! Germany embodied the circular economy. Here, every element from the architecture and garden to its internal narrative explored a sustainable — and circular — cycle. Praised by jurors as “a clear concept and message that was magically communicated in two letters,” the Germany pavilion was based on an architectural layering effect. The of

GUEST EDITOR'S CHOICE DESIGN: Alchemy, BRC Imagination Arts, Trahan Architects FABRICATION: BeWunder, ES Global / Alchemy, True Staging Presenting America as a narrative adventure, the USA Pavilion set a spirit of imagination and innovation at the center of its story. Visible from throughout the Grand Ring encircling the Expo, the pavilion anchored around a translucent cube that appeared as if suspended in air, flanked by two triangular buildings. Giant LED screens broadcast

DESIGN/FABRICATION: Lava, NUSSLI Group, Insglück Gesellschaft für Markeninszenierung mbH From the moment visitors arrived at the Kuwait pavilion, cultural symbolism and connectedness took center stage. While a soaring wing-shaped roof gave a symbolic nod to Kuwait's dunes and waves, its modern design spoke to the country's future. Inside, the cultural story unfolded across five choreographed chapters — from an immersive 4D activity within a cleverly constructed oyster shell t

DESIGN: Foster + Partners FABRICATION: RIMOND Japan KK, Tanseisha Co. Ltd Few environments captured the essence of their respective countries better than the Saudi Arabia pavilion. As proof, it took home multiple awards in categories ranging from Best Large Pavilion to Best Use of Technology. However, beyond showmanship and emotional impact, the pavilion delivered a minimal blow to Mother Nature, earning it the top spot in the Best Sustainable Design category as well. Beyond

DESIGN: Shin-Ichi FukuokaNaoki,NHA|Naoki Hashimoto Architects,Takram FABRICATION: Kajima Corp., Tanseisha The Dynamic Equilibrium of Life pavilion was a matter of life and death. Producer and biologist Fukuoka Shinichi wanted it to make the most optimistic of points — how and why life doesn't really end — in an experience judges called “an artist's philosophical exploration.” Representing the moment when life takes form, the structure's curved exterior was appropriately chris

DESIGN: Earth to Ether Design Collective, RIMOND Japan KK FABRICATION: RIMOND Japan KK, UAE Expo Office, Atelier Brückner, Process Iguchi, Shelter, R/O/U/Y/A, SLA Cultural storytelling can be the tide of connection, which is precisely what the winners of the Best Staff at World Expo 2025 accomplished. UAE Pavilion's Youth Ambassador Programme was the realization of a quest to cultivate a team of 46 ambassadors who embodied the UAE's unwavering allegiance to global engagement.