The Czech pavilion in Dubai will be created according to the design by Formosa AA studio

Prague - The national pavilion at the Expo 2020 in Dubai will be created according to the design of the Czech architectural studio Formosa AA. The jury selected the proposal from five that advanced to the finals. Starting today, the pavilion's design is presented by a model at the National Technical Museum along with other competition proposals. The Czech Republic will only rent the building from those who create it and will pay 84 million crowns for it. The selection committee was impressed by the winning proposal's approach to an organic structure that integrates with the square lines of the exhibition space. This was stated by Jiří František Potužník, the general commissioner of the Czech participation, at the exhibition's opening.

The company Formosa AA consists of PhD candidates from the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University (ČVUT). The pavilion will be constructed by an international consortium of companies MIC Prague and the Swiss firm NÜSSLI. The committee included architects and architecture theorists Eva Jiřičná, Miroslav Řepa, Zdeněk Lukeš, Michael Klang, and David Vávra, as well as representatives from academia, the arts, and the business community: Tomáš Matuška, Jan Kukla, and Radek Špicar, organizers stated. Potužník mentioned that five proposals, including foreign ones, had to be disqualified from the competition as they were submitted after the deadline.

Zdeněk Lukeš noted that the jury unanimously selected the winning proposal. "An interesting artistic motif emerged that also grows into the pavilion. It features a symbol of water, as the Czech pavilion presents a unique technical device for producing water under challenging conditions," he stated. The pavilion's environment is also welcoming for visitors who may be fatigued during tours of such extensive exhibitions, and the winning proposal provides clear orientation.

The technological core of the national exposition will be the S.A.W.E.R. system that produces water from air using solar energy and cultivates the desert through subsurface cultures, developed by scientists from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and ČVUT. According to today's statement from the winning studio's representative, this was also the main motif in shaping the pavilion.

The artistic exhibition will consist of a large glass installation, which will be produced at its own expense by the company Lasvit according to a design by Maxim Velčovský; Velčovský is the creative director of Lasvit. There will also be a restaurant and rotating exhibitions in the pavilion.

According to Potužník, the Czech pavilion in Dubai will, just like at the Expo in Milan in 2015, be the first one at one of the main entrances to the exhibition grounds. The organizers expect that 25 million people will visit the world exhibition during its six-month duration, 75 percent of whom will be from abroad.

The budget for the national participation at Expo 2020 is expected to be between 250 and 310 million crowns according to earlier information.