The Seed Cathedral
The UK Pavilion might easily be the most remarkable building at the upcoming Shanghai Expo in 2012. Designed by architect Thomas Heatherwick, the so-called “Seed Cathedral” has already won Britain’s top international architecture award, The Royal Institute of Architects Lubetkin Prize. Most notable for its texture, the pavilion is made of 60,000 transparent rods, each 24.5 feet long, that move like stalks in a wheat field; each acrylic rod contains a several seeds, 200,000 in all.
The idea behind the seeds came from the fact that London is one of the greenest cities of its size in the world. It was the first to build a public park and a botanical garden, the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, which is currently involved in the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, where seeds from 25% of the world’s plant species are being collected, researched and stored. “To me,” Heatherwich explains, “these seeds represent something emotionally very fundamental; A seed might be the reason your grandmother’s life was extended by ten years, or the reason that a particular country’s entire economy survives. So there are many readings to the Seed Cathedral.”
Among Heatherwich’s design concerns was the need for the Cathedral to be an open, calm and inviting space. As such, there are no walls and no roof, and the floor is softer so visitors can take a load off from the concrete in the rest of the Expo. After the Expo is over, the Cathedral will be disassembled and either rebuilt in a new location or, in a plan dubbed ‘the dandelion project,’ the rods will be distributed to schools around the world.
