The Ubiquitous Footstep of Anhui Province--Touring Anhui Pavilion of Expo 2010
2010-03-19
The Hui (abbreviated from Anhui) Culture is an important stream of China’s deeply-rooted and long-flourishing culture. Based on their unique territorial nature, Anhui merchants spread out to conduct business, and eventually settled down throughout the country. This trend reached its peak during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Anhui Pavilion of Expo 2010 will display the Hui Culture of its province based on the theme “Better Life by the Hui Culture – The Ubiquitous Footstep of Anhui Province”, which will showcase the beautiful life, prosperous economy and prosperous people living there.
Hui-style architecture:the facade
The Anhui Pavilion will follow the unique Hui-style architecture, creating a harmonious composition of ancient Chinese buildings. The exterior of the pavilion will use a Barrisol curtain wall with rectangular fenders inside to absorb daylight, so as to create the feel of a typical Hui-style building that can easily stand out among pavilions.
A typical Hui-style building should have white walls and black tiles, with horse-head fire protection walls on top. Visitors can walk through an L-tunnel, where volunteers will distribute brochures of Hui culture in various languages. The planned visitor flow is 200 people per hour, but could go as high as 300 people per hour.
Anhui Impression:the interactivity
The Anhui Pavilion includes two main exhibition areas. “Anhui Impression”, one of the two areas, will focus on the historical impact of Hui culture highlighted by its intrinsic philosophy of harmony and innovation on the modern life.
The 240-square-meter pavilion’s first surprise will be a laser image of a famed "Guest-Greeting Pine”, at the entrance to the Yellow Mountain to welcome visitors. Names of various cities in Anhui will then glisten on the branches, symbolizing the fact that people in the province are very hospitable.
"Anhui Impression"
The highlight of the exhibition area will be a floating multimedia display composed of a huge ink and water painting themed on the three most famous mountains/rivers in the province and a large screen wall. Visitors in the tunnel can enjoy the painting and feel immersive at the Yellow Mountain, Jiuhua Mountain, Tianzhu Mountain, or by the Yangtze River, Huai River and Xin’an River – the so called “three mountains and three rivers” in the province.
Visitors will then arrive at the interactive area named “Origin of Harmony”, where they will walk across a courtyard from a Hui-style building. In the center there will be a stone drum made of local material and carved in the Hui style. On the ground around the stone drum will be painted crabs and lotus flowers to symbolize the origin of harmony, since the pronunciation of “crab” and “lotus” together in Chinese is the same of the word “harmony”. Visitors will even be able to control a virtual brush to practice calligraphy on the stone drum, and the recognition function will then identify the character and project the writing on the screen fitted to it.
Visitors will also see a group of virtual “throstles” flying in the court and listen to their beautiful singing. Following the direction of the “birds”, a door will gradually open and lead visitors through the LED time tunnel to another area.
Colorful experience:the round theater
Visitors will then arrive at a round theater - the exhibition area named “Colorful City”, where they will encounter a huge gift box that will be gradually unpacked until a crystal bottle dazzles visitors. With agreeable music, a seven-colored ink will spill over the bottle from the top and flow down. After the touch of a child’s hands, the bottle will instantly display an ink and water painting of the Yellow Mountain. Before long, the painting will fade and on the surface of the bottle, images of tourist attractions will appear, followed by videos about the development of industry, agriculture, infrastructure, advanced technology, territorial culture and opening policy of the province.
After the video introductions, as if spurred by magic, those colorful sands in the bottle will then rise and form the figure of a dancing woman. While the “woman” throws petals in the air, bookmarks will fall from the ceiling. The bookmarks are serve as real souvenirs from the splendid dreamland created for visitors prepared by the organizers.
Editor: Li Jing
Source: Official Website of Shanghai Expo
