Utopies universalistes: La nature en concurrence

Abstract

How can one donate one's body to a utopia? The preparations of the universal exposition which was held in Japan in a suburb of Nagoya in 2005 offers the opportunity to follow the conceptual and material work which enabled the emergence of a new type of relation between humans and nature. The Expo 2005 adopted the theme of the "rediscovery of the wisdom of nature" which was to be a new universal metronome. The organisers and the architects working on the Expo were asked to free their proposals from the local stranglehold where it had been conceived so as to achieve a universal scale which was to be a veritable alternative for the future of technicised societies. This paper follows this difficult journey and pays special attention to the architectural proposals which were to make Expo 2005 the first nonmodern universal exposition.