By Kouichi Tsuda

For planners, why is World Expo charming? For me, Expo is charming because the Expo contents could integrate "participant's objective" and "visitor's expectation" in this "platform" called pavilion. It is also charming because Expo is expected to "create brand new feelings." My personal planning career is a career that continuously chases after and appreciates the "happiness" from this creation.

The idea and dream of World Expo

World Expo provides a chance for all visitors to experience the most shocking thing in their times and to get "never seen" and "never experienced" surprises, which would influence their lives in the future. To be a little exaggerated, the largest value of World Expo lies in whether it could satisfy the visitor’s expected contents on this stage that could experience the future.

The idea and dream of World Expo is not only to give the visitors brand new experiences during the Expo, but a sustainable one that continues to after their visit. Hence, in terms of World Expo, it is important to remember that "Organizing World Expo is a method rather than an objective." In other words, the organizers "expect, chase after and achieve" their own values through World Expo and the participants promote and communicate their value systems through the form of exhibition. In fact, the first World Expo held in London was not a pure event, but a forum intended to give people "dream and information to the future". Large amount of spiritual treasures from the first World Expo let us appreciate the "glorious future", the "promising tomorrow" "the dream of future" and motivates us to pass on the energy to the next generation.

Hence, clear objectives are needed prior to holding and participating large exhibitions like World Expo in order to satisfy the spiritual values such as "happiness", "touching","holding together" and "energy" for people. In other words, it is extremely important for countries and corporations to consider carefully why they want to participate in the exhibition.

To Build touching corporate pavilions

Certainly, World Expo cannot be organized with only great ideas. Specific planning is also required. Every pavilion has the mission to communicate participant's information to visitors. As planners, how can we transfer those plain values into contents that people would accept? My idea is to build touching pavilions with moving performances.

A successful pavilion can touch the visitor, allowing him to open his heart and listen carefully, which is the only way for the visitor to appreciate from the same perspective as the participant. In other words, the visitors would only care about the participant's information when they reached the stage of "touching". Then they will get interested and gradually understand. For the past 30 years, I have been practicing this principle in my design. The touched visitors always agree with our designed themes and considered it "very exciting".

Touching Wonder Circus-Electric Power Pavilion

The Wonder Circus -- Electric Power Pavilion in Expo 2005 Aichi was a result of the design principle mentioned above.

Wonder Circus -- Electric Power Pavilion was designed and built by nine Japanese power stations and The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan. Japanese power companies now face many problems including expanding current power business, "providing safe and stable energy" and social missions like "environmental protection". The value system promoted by The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan is "Earth, Human, Dream, the wonderful world". They decided the theme of "Powerful Imagination" for the pavilion and my mission is to illustrate such theme within the space of the power pavilion.

The power pavilion is intended to satisfy all visitors, which is very difficult. In trying to satisfy everyone, it is easily to disappoint everyone. Hence, my design did not focus only on motivating the five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell). The most important motivation was to surprise the "heart" rather than the basic five sense, which was the key to make many people satisfied and touched. In terms of motivating the five senses, this can be different for people at various ages. But things that could surprise "human heart" should be able to gee similar responses from all people.

Entering the power pavilion, you can see drawings decorated on the exterior walls. These drawings were selected from 6000 all over the world and were filled with children's imagination for the future. This feature forecasted an exciting experience in the pavilion. In the waiting zone, the introduction of the tour guides and colorful trains made the visitors expect even more about the experience. Finally, the "Hukumaru" train for the visitors included climbing, dropping and turning on the 300-meter rail. We also used high-tech virtual displays and sound & image methods in order to provide the visitors a key to a wonderland and let them ponder between now and the future. The four seasons of Japan, displayed on the way, is closed connected to the Expo theme. The exit was filled with various Japanese folk festivals to promote love for life. The images, intertwined with reality and imagination, reflected the theme of "Powerful Imagination". We saw the ideas and values of the enterprises perfectly illustrated from everyone's excited cheers after taking such a surprising trip.

World Expo is a romantic place for human emotions. It is also a huge space media, incomparable on earth. The form of World Expo might change in the future, but the idea will remain. I hope that Expo Shanghai will provide the world with more exciting and "touching" corporate pavilions.