Discovery Pavilion - Expo Sevilla 1992
Of all the exhibitions held under the name Expo'92 - 15th Century, Navigation, Nature, Environment, Energy, Telecommunications, Universe and Discoveries - this last pavilion was the only one that was not monographic, it presented a synthesis of the creative power of humanity over the last five centuries. One of the most striking messages of this pavilion was undoubtedly a relativistic conception of progress or, better still, a distrust of mere technological challenges.
After so many successes in the field of space, time and nature, in the use of new energies and new materials for communication between people and the massive proliferation of new products, the pavilion warned us of the regression of humanity to a state sometimes close to savagery. The Discovery Pavilion was thus immersed in a concern about ends and means.
Of course, the conception of this pavilion, which started from the awareness of the unity of Humanity proclaimed by Bartolomé de Las Casas and ended with an idea of solidarity that began with caravels and ended with sputniks, was a call to integral Humanism, to the need to put technological resources at the service of a progress compatible with a more just economic order. We were warned, therefore, about the unsafety of industrial processes, of the relationships of domination, of the manipulation of the massive means of communication, and the concern for the preservation of this fragile home that is the earth, our blue planet, was emphasised.
All these messages were certainly very clear in the exhibitions on Nature, the Environment, the Universe and Energy. Visitors to these other pavilions could feel the spirit that permeates and was very explicit in this synthesis pavilion. The fire made this exhibition no longer possible. The consummation in so few hours of so much work and so much time, the conversion into smoke of so many hopes, can be for the visitor to Expo'92 an opportunity for the very reflection that arose from the very discourse of the exhibition. What was fortuitous, what could not be foreseen, what could not be controlled was also part of our history. It was a call to distrust blind optimism.
© Official Guide Expo'92