Expo Milano 2015 is the Universal Exhibition that Italy will host from May 1 to October 31, 2015 and which will be the largest event ever organized on food and nutrition. For six months, Milan will become a global showcase in which participating countries will show the best of their technologies to offer a concrete answer to a vital need: being able to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone, while respecting the Planet and its equilibrium.
With an exhibition area of 1.1 million square meters, the Expo will involve more than 140 countries, international organizations, and expects to welcome over 20 million visitors.
Expo Milano 2015 will be a platform for the exchange of ideas and shared solutions on the theme of food, stimulating each country’s creativity and promoting innovation for a sustainable future. It will give everyone the opportunity to know and taste the best dishes of the world and discover the best of the agri-food and gastronomic traditions of each country.
"What we will do at Expo?"
The expo will enhance the "visitor experience" with events, content, thematic tours and great architecture.
The site comprises an area of 1.1 million square meters, easily accessible and designed by internationally renowned architects. Expo Milano 2015 will feature an exposition garden with more than 12,000 trees, water features and a long canal that surrounds the area. The two large main avenues, the Cardo and the Decumano, will overlook the Pavilions of the Participating Countries, the squares and the public areas dedicated to events and catering. The buildings follow the criteria of energy efficiency and sustainability in their construction, and are able to be removed and then resused after the end of the event.
The site will host four thematic areas, the places where the theme of the event will be developed. They range from the Pavilion Zero, which tells the story of man on Earth through his relationship with food, to the Future Food District, which explains how technology will change the storage, distribution, purchase and consumption of food. Then there are the areas of the Childrens Park, the space in which children learn about the themes of Expo Milano 2015 while having fun, and the Biodiversity Park, a large garden in which a variety of ecosystems that are found on our planet are reproduced. In town, at the Triennale museum, there will be Arts & Foods, the exhibition that explores how the relationship between food and art has changed over the centuries.
For the countries that do not build their own pavilions, an innovative mode of participation was proposed: the Cluster. These exhibition spaces unite countries that share the production of a specific food or theme within the same architectural project. There are nine Clusters that are spread over a total area of 36,650 square meters: Bio-Mediterraneum, Cereals and Tubers, Islands, Arid Zones, Fruits and Legumes, Spices, Coffee, Cocoa and Rice. Within each Cluster the story of food is told with videos, installations and photo exhibitions. There will be space for cooking demonstrations and tastings, as well as a large market where you can discover the most unusual foods, as presented directly by the people who cultivate them and produces.
The Expo Milano 2015 mascot, Foody
The Expo Milano 2015 mascot, Foody, embodies the key themes of the event in a way that’s upbeat, original and powerful. Foody is honest, wise, respectful and a real fan of healthy, tasty food. Foody also stands for community, diversity and food in the broadest sense, as a source of life and energy.
So it makes sense that the Expo mascot be a family of eleven members, each having their own unique personalities: real characters in their own right, and expressed as a single face. They represent an ideal synergy between those countries in the world who must address the planet’s food challenges, positively and energetically, and united as a true family.
