The 2000 Hannover World expo fair was not received with big enthusiasm. The number of visitors was much lower then expected and suggested in advance. Did it lack inspiration?
The situation somewhere in the middle of Germany - a political choice: the center of west and the newly united east part of Germany - within a very provincial and moderating town did not help in that. It is not very attractive. There is no reason to be there. After the expo, the unemployment rate radically increased. People started to leave the region. Who can under those circumstances invest in the maintenance of the expo? Almost none of the buildings were being re-used afterwards. Many of them were broken down. Except the Dutch. Why? Had it indeed become a monument?
The Dutch pavilion remained as a solitude element within a landscape that looked after the fall of a nuclear bomb. Fences were erected around the building. Lifts, trees and windmills were dismantled. Thousands of birds started to inhabit the vacant structure. Squatters (other birds) started to live in the floors. Partyseekers started to use the forest. It became a real park so to say. This distopia was not so bad. It became a ruin in the best German tradition. As in Heine’s poems or in Goethe’s memories, a new ruin was born! We could already imagine a structure overgrown with ivy.... The secret discussion on its future, found its current apocalypse in September 2005. Finally it has been sold. Through eBay.
Sources:
TP065_drawings.pdf