The Hanover Expo 2000 – 20 years after the world fair took place
Photographer Piet Niemann re-visited the EXPO-site and documented the current state in a comprehensive body of work, 20 years after the world fair took place. The first extract of this project focuses exclusively on the icon and most popular Pavilion of the time – the Netherlands Pavilion.
This Pavilion was an early project of the Rotterdam-based architectural practice MVRDV, which recently have been awarded the DAM Prize for Architecture in Germany with the project WERK12 in Munich – an obvious predecessor of their EXPO-Pavilion.
After the world fair closed, the Pavilion, as well as large parts of the EXPO-site, were left for decay, contrary to the advertised continued use. Additionally to the dotcom bubble burst, local politics and authorities actively prevented a reasonable continued use, since they feared a too strong competition for the city center of Hanover.
However, the Netherlands Pavilion is going to be reanimated very soon, again by MVRDV, with 370 apartments for students and Coworking Spaces.
