A Slice of Hungarian Culture

Photo by Zoboki Design & Architecture Studio

Zoboki Design & Architecture, one of the largest architectural studios in Hungary with decades of experience in Hungary and abroad, has been chosen to create the concept for the Hungarian Pavilion at this year's World Expo in Osaka. Their design director, András Csiszér tells Diplomacy&Trade how they were selected for this job and what ideas they came up with to “offer visitors an emotional and engaging experience.”

“After the creative concept had been developed, Expo 2025 Hungary Ltd. launched an architectural competition for the design in spring 2023, to which we – as a design team experienced in the design of performing arts spaces – were invited. The jury, made up of renowned architects and tourism experts, chose the three best designs and invited the designers to a public procurement procedure, which we won,” the Design Director explains.
In the opinion of the jury, the Zoboki studio design was the most complex in meeting the creative and technical requirements of the call for proposals, using spatial composition and aesthetic means that, despite the density of the program, resulted in a light, airy and transparent architectural appearance. “Once commissioned, a tendered idea is usually subject to many influences that transform it substantially. But in our case, the forest-field-haystack concept, which focuses on the event space of the immersive dome, was so strong that it stood the test of further design,” he adds.

A slice of Hungarian culture
The main theme of the 2025 World Expo in Osaka is designing the society of the future. As to how the Hungarian Pavilion fits into this, András Csiszér stresses that there are strong tectonic movements taking place in the world, in the light of which the question of how future societies will function and how people can consciously influence them positively in the present is a very relevant issue. As each culture goes its own way, they increasingly meet, interact and interconnect. “We are convinced that planning for the future is unthinkable without knowledge and respect for the past, and thus, the focus of the pavilion's theme is to present a slice of Hungarian culture in a way that it connects as many strands as possible with the culture of Japan that hosts the World Expo. By transmitting knowledge across generations, we aim to bridge the gap between past and present and to offer visitors an emotional and engaging experience. Through folk music and folk art, we have sought to create a multi-level link between Japan and Hungary as well as between the past and the present.”

Immersive dome
For the creative concept team, a key objective was to discover common values and roots in Hungarian and Japanese culture, which they found in the pentatonic-based melodies that are found in both peoples’ folk music, providing a unique sound. “Refining the direction together and assisting with various architectural tools, we created a space enclave that offers the opportunity to escape from the noisy and stimulating world of the World Expo. We have created a visionary route that offers the opportunity for a gradual quietening. At the focal point of this journey, we arrive at the performance space of the Immersive dome, an infinite, universal space, dreamed up by artistic director Bence Vági, with Hungarian folk song at its absolute center,” the Design Director highlights.
By exploring the optimum building options for the unusual elongated plot shapes designated for the pavilions, the designers discovered that there are commonalities between Japanese and Hungarian folk architecture in terms of both the settlement landscape and the building style. This side-framed building style, typical of single-alley, comb-shaped plots, became the basis for their spatial concept, which allowed them to create an open and airy building. In this way, the composition creates unity between landscape and peasant culture.

Forest, field, haystack
In terms of both appearance and function, the pavilion is made up of three large units.
“Folk songs often start with images of nature, and we have built the architectural concept from three typical images of nature: the forest as the untouched and wild nature; the field, which is the lush and gentle landscape so typical of the Carpathian Basin; and the haystack, which is the symbol of the landscape still carefully cultivated by man,” András Csiszér points out.
The meadow is the base path that serves, in the form of an artificial hill, as the main visitor route; the forest is the foreground building, where the gastronomic and communal functions are located, and the haystack is the Immersive dome that awaits visitors at the rear of the site. “It is a focal point that is not directly accessible from the outside: you have to walk the unknown path to discover what it hides,” he adds.
The main function of the pavilion is to provide exhibition and event spaces built into the visitor route. The performance nature of the event space allows visitors to enter the dome in groups at set times, and this pulsation affects the organization of the entire route. From the world expo promenade, visitors follow the path that winds through the meadow towards the pavilion and then enter the artificial hill at the bottom of the forest building. Here, they proceed through an information foyer and on to the exhibition space, where they get – through a multi-sensory preparatory 'exhibition experience space' prepared by the creative team lead by Dávid Drozsnyik and László Ördögh – to the event space of the Immersive dome. After the immersive experience, visitors pass through the final exhibition, returning to the shop part of the lobby, through which they will exit to the field and either return to the hustle and bustle of the World Expo or continue their journey in the gastronomic and social spaces on the floor of the Forest building.

Curiosity leads the visitor
One of the objectives of the Hungarian participation is to encourage people attending the Expo to visit Hungary. As the Design Director explains, “the main aim of the exhibition and the pavilion is to offer visitors an emotional and multisensorial hands-on experience rather than the traditional information-gathering approach. Through folk music, we offer a glimpse into our culture and the Hungarian soul, pointing out the common features between the two peoples. We hope that this will create a level of experience, curiosity and attachment that will lead visitors to a deeper understanding of our people and culture, which includes visiting and exploring our country and the Carpathian Basin.”
As for the overall experience of the Zoboki Design & Architecture studio’s work on the Hungarian Pavilion, András Csiszér highlights that “for a creative team, it is always a thrill and a challenge to formulate a message that will give an image of their country to millions of people. As architects, our task in it is to accommodate this message, fine-tune it, turn it into a virtual space and then make it possible to build it in a country that is foreign to us. We enjoyed this process with the creative team and received tremendous help from our Japanese design partners, So Kikaku Sekkei, who have continuously supported us in understanding the local possibilities, customs and rules, and then produced the final plans based on our design.”