By Victoria “NIKE” De Dios
Photos from DTI-Trade Promotions Group
As the Dubai Expo 2020 opening is nearing, the Philippine team headed by Her Excellency Hjayceelyn Quintana, Philippine Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates visited the construction site of the pavilion and expressed her satisfaction with the final stages of the work as the handover is scheduled for next month.
Ambassador Quintana also lauded the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (PDTI), the Philippines government lead agency in organizing the Philippine participation to the World Expo. PDTI, she said, is successfully delivering the pavilion, through efficient project administration.
She also observed the foresight of the UAE government for recognizing Expo 2020 Dubai as a global platform to enable smarter movement of knowledge, ideas, products and services.
“We are in solidarity with UAE as it forges ahead with optimism for the opening of Expo 2020 Dubai on October 1. The construction of the national pavilions, including the Philippines’ Bangkóta, moved at an immense pace thereby showing UAE’s extraordinary ability as host of this global event to overcome unprecedented challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Her Excellency.
“We are immeasurably proud to witness the Bangkóta vision evolving from a blueprint, and taking shape as a truly world-class, sustainable structural showcase that is set to enthrall Expo visitors, as well as make the Filipinos proud,” she added.
The Philippine Ambassador and her delegation were received by Expo 2020 Dubai officials who also toured them around Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion, which is focused by an interactive experience on humanity’s relationship with the planet.
The Philippines pavilion responds to its location in the Sustainability District of the Expo with a strong assertion of cultural sustainability across thousands of years.
The ‘Bangkota’ spans a 1,386-square-metre pavilion that evokes the coral reef as a metaphor for the Filipino capacity for extreme interconnectedness. The pavilion’s architectural design was conceived by Budji+Royal Architecture+Design. It is curated by Marian Pastor Roces, who selected accomplished artists to use their own visual languages to convey updated information about Philippine culture.
About The Bangkóta – Philippines Pavilion in Expo 2020 Dubai
Bangkóta is the name and inspiration for the pavilion of Philippines at the World Expo 2020, which will be held from October 1, 2021— March 31, 2022 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The pavilion, organically shaped like the Bangkóta—the ancient term for “coral reef” in the language Tagalog—updates knowledge about the Philippines, an archipelagic nation that nourished a collective, sea-oriented culture for millennia.
By calling attention to the coral reef-like qualities of Filipinos—such as an inclination for hyper-connectivity—the pavilion offers clues into a people who can build vibrant communities everywhere in the world.
Remaining interconnected with each other as Filipinos, even through massive diaspora, the Philippines’ global stage is held together digitally. In the past 4000 years, as their Austronesian ancestors spread throughout island Southeast Asia and then embarked across the Pacific, they were and still are connected by the oceans of the world.
The Philippines pavilion evokes this hardy, traveling people in the sustainability District of the Expo, poetically emphasizing cultural sustainability through the millennia. In a plot size of 3163.25 sqm, the pavilion presents contemporary expressions in architecture, art, and design that links the deep past with the future of connectivity for the Filipino.
It is conceptualized and actualized by Architect Royal Pineda of Budji+Royal Architecture+Design and independent curator Marian Pastor Roces, collaborating with unusual synchrony with Assistant Secretary Rosario Virginia Gaetos of the Department of Trade and Industry, who also serves as Alternate Commissioner General of the Philippine Organizing Committee (POC).
Bangkóta aligns with the theme of this forthcoming Expo 2020 – “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future” – with a riveting image of the Philippines and its people as truly global.
