The Seville World Fair was held in 1990. With the theme of discovery, it celebrated both space exploration and the 500th anniversary of the Christopher Columbus’s first expedition.

Our choice was to reveal the human dimension of these adventures.

World exhibitions are full of objects, machines and stunning visuals. Rather than allow ourselves to be fascinated by them we displayed them at a certain distance with the aim of establishing a more complex, more sensual and possibly more French relation with the visitors.
The French Pavillion, filled with objects and images, gave an expression of Man, of Life.

The wind is charged to give the idea of the living. The wind that blew along the Guadalquivir Delta and drove Columbus on his way.
The pavilion is completely covered with fabric. It wears a supple clothing.
Its facades incorporate a grid of air shafts and pockets. The air captured on the roof circulates freely along them in such a way that the slightest breeze inflates the facades which start to gently pulsate.
Inside, head down, three monochrome helicopters generate air movements that agitate the tall grass covering a large incline. France is both the leading manufacturer of civil helicopters and a large agricultural nation.

A mobile 400-meter bench replaces the usual escalators : one meet and converse seated on this serpentine furniture. One lose oneself in the windswept prairie before browsing through the presentations of objects arranged on the floors.

The living being destined to die, after a year the Seville Sun will reduce the fabric to powder that the wind will eventually scatter. The metal skeleton will be reused and the pavilion will not weigh down future generations.