Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Inspired by the historical wind towers and climate-regulating properties of traditional Arab clay architecture, Querkraft Architekten has designed the Austrian Pavilion for the EXPO 2020 in Dubai.

Based on emotional and ecological sustainability, Austria’s Pavilion for the EXPO 2020 in Dubai has been awarded a 2022 Green Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

In a time where huge amounts of information create misleading answers for complex issues, the Austrian Pavilion focuses on the framework of innovations. Instead of giving answers, it concentrates on asking questions.

Re-interpreting the host country’s building traditions, 38 intersecting cones of different heights form the unmistakable shape of the Austrian EXPO pavilion.

Arranged around three green courtyards, exciting and unique room sequences with different atmospheres are created inside and outside.

With its haptic surfaces made of clay plaster pleasant to the touch, the canopy of leaves rustling in the wind over the open cones and the omnipresent interplay of light and shadow, the building itself appeals to all senses.

With interculturally understandable imagery and media art installations, the international audience is brought closer to culture and technical innovations from Austria in an intuitively understandable way.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the EXPO business, visitors to the Austrian Pavilion will find a place to slow down and relax with a pleasant climate, daylight, and references to nature.

Thanks to its iconic shape and positive charisma, the temporary building will not only live on in the appreciative memories of its international guests beyond EXPO 2020.

Conceived with the economical use of resources in mind from the beginning on, the pavilion will also persist in the physical sense – made possible by the construction of just eight different types of precast elements.

After 182 days of EXPO 2020, the cones will be dismantled into their individual parts and reassembled in a new location in the Arab world.

The interplay of local building tradition and intelligent climate engineering from Austria makes it possible to largely dispense with conventional air conditioning technology, even in this hot desert climate.

The energy requirement has been reduced by more than 70 percent compared to buildings of similar type and use. The Austrian pavilion thus makes an intercultural contribution to the energy debate and questions of climate-sensitive building.

Project: Austrian Pavilion at EXPO 2020
Architects: querkraft architekten zt gmbh
Design Team: Jakob Dunkl, Gerd Erhartt, Peter Sapp, Clemens Russ, and Fabian Kahr
General Contractor: Nüssli Group
Clients: Austria’s Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW) and the Austria Federal Economic Chamber (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich)
Photographers: querkraft architekten, Kieran Fraser and Patricia Bagienski