Coldefy and CRA unveil design of France’s national pavilion at World Expo Osaka 2025
The project is conceived as a Theatrum Naturae, featuring France’s rich landscape as part of a looping narrative path, suggesting new entanglements between humans and other forms of life in our cities.
Inhabited garden
The pavilion can be explored from side to side, but also from the ground up to the roof: here, nature is experienced both as landscape and as shelter. A vast garden roof shelters the pavilion and supports its energetic regulation, while showcasing the diversity of French nature.
The journey culminates on the Pavilion's rooftop, featuring a landscaped garden crowning the building, resembling a slice of nature serving as a protective barrier above the pavilion—a space of common ground welcoming all living species. As visitors walk through the garden, they take a journey through the different environs of France, from the mountains to the coast.
It represents the climax of the narrative, akin to the conclusion of a play that reveals the vital realization of our connection to nature.
Theatrum Naturae
The pavilion celebrates the French savoir faire, putting it front and center stage. Honoring the experimental history of the French mise-en-scene, the pavilion reveals itself with a system of curtains on facades, rising to offer a continuous spectacle to onlookers and visitors.
A living pavilion
The pavilion is a fluid place that combines natural and artificial, as well as human and plant life under the principle of co-living with nature. A single and interdependent community shares the same rights and a common ground.
Life after Expo
The pavilion is conceived as an assembled machine of prefab components and natural elements; as such, it is part of a wider cycle of life that goes beyond the Expo event. The vegetation will continue to grow in the hosting country, collocated in the appropriate climate zones.
A bridge between all forms of life
Coldefy and CRA unveil the design of the French Pavilion at Osaka Expo 2025, titled ‘Theatrum Naturae’, or “Theatre of Nature”, reconfigured to show France’s contribution to culture and the natural environment in the 21st century. The architecture of the French Pavilion illustrates how design bridges the gap between human and non-human life across the planet on our planet, welcoming them into our natural and artificial habitats. It brings France’s multiple ecosystems to the fore, making them an integral part of the building and the visitors’ path. The design is jointly developed by French architecture studio Coldefy and Italian architecture and innovation practice CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati. International design & build firm RIMOND Group acts as the main contractor. Japanese firm Yasui Sekkei provides engineering and local compliance expertise.
A pavilion celebrating human senses
A single pathway celebrating human senses takes the visitors through the Pavilion, creating an experience divided into what could be considered three acts: Ascent, Discovery of Nature, and Return to the Ground. Rising from ground level in an “arc de scène”, the experience begins by taking a sensual staircase that winds to form an observation balcony before crossing a curtain threshold to create an infinite loop. This loop allows for a complete exploration of the interior space of the building, encompassing its entire volume, before opening onto the verdant terrace.
Sustainable and circular design
Designed within a circular architectural approach, the pavilion is not only a red thread linking the many aspects of French human and more-than-human life. It also seamlessly blends prefabricated and natural elements, embedding its existence in a virtuous loop of reuse and recycling that extends far beyond the fleeting timeframe of the World Expo.
Team:
Project owner: Cofrex
General contractor: Rimond
Architects: Coldefy & Carlo Ratti Architetti
Project Team: Thomas Coldefy, Isabel Van Haute, Zoltan Neville, Martin Mercier, Marianna Guarino, Léo Akahori, Leonardo Ronchi, Shuai Wang
Carlo Ratti, Andrea Cassi (partner in charge), Ina Sefgjini, Gizem Veral, Jelena Kro, Gabriele Sacchi, Alba Leon Alvarez, Marie Petrault, Antoine Picon
Local Architects & Engineers: Yasui Sekkei
Structural engineers: Bollinger + Grohmann
Landscape architects: Coloco
Environmental engineers: Ramboll
Graphics/signage: de_form
