Pavilion Pulled Down, Packed Up And Repurposed

The Australia Pavilion from the recently completed Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan is simply going to be dismantled, and its parts repurposed for other projects: a stark contrast to the fate of previous pavilions from earlier world’s fairs held in Japan.

Last time Osaka held the fair in 1970, the Australia Pavilion had been one of the stars of the show, dazzling visitors with its architecture inspired by Hokusai‘s Great Wave Off Kanagawa in homage to the hosts.

It made such a lasting impact that instead of ripping it down and forgetting about it, Aussie aficionados in Japan had the pavilion relocated to Yokkaichi in Mie Prefecture. Though at first a baffling choice for the largely industrial city best known for its cyberpunk night views of dimly lit factories, the port at Yokkaichi has a sister-port relationship with Sydney. And there it became the Australia Memorial Hall.

Yokkaichi officials pledged that the Australian Memorial Hall would be used “in the future as a perpetual monument to Japanese-Australian friendship.” And for a long time, it did just that, housing all sorts of exhibits, displays and artefacts related to Australia and made available at no charge to any who visited.

After Japan held another world’s fair, Expo 2005 Aichi, in Nagoya, items that had appeared in the Australia Pavilion from that event ended up being transferred to the Australian Memorial Hall, most notably a 25-meter-long fibreglass platypus called Kamone, which had been the mascot and highlight of Oz’s display.

Unlike the Osaka ’70 pavilion, the shed at Aichi was nondescript, bland almost. Aichi was the first world’s fair to strive for a focus on sustainability, and the Australia Pavilion carried the message, promising “to provide for the sustainable future – environmentally, economically and socially.”

The pavilion stated an aim to reflect the theme of the Expo — “Nature’s Wisdom” — from an Australian perspective.

The pavilion did contain business spaces for trade talks, where Australia almost undoubtedly went about promoting a sustainable future by selling coal and other carbon dioxide belching materials to the hosts, though that’s a story for another day.

Reinforced with booty from the Aichi Expo, the Australian Memorial Hall continued on, its surrounds adorned with gum trees and rideable toy sheep.

Mie Prefecture, Yokkaichi and the local port had footed the bill for the upkeep of the Australian Memorial Hall throughout the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and Noughties, keeping the promise to make it a perpetual monument to the friendship between the two countries even as Japan’s economy stayed limp for decades.

Sadly, when money is no longer around, perpetual monuments can’t last forever.

Opposition politicians in Yokkaichi had been lambasting the Australian Memorial Hall since at least the mid-’90s.

More came to stand against it as seismic resistance requirements became more stringent.

A trust set up to fund operation of the hall didn’t have enough funds to pay for the 200 million yen reinforcement work costs. Even taking out a loan, the 3 million yen annual maintenance bill was also proving a hurdle.

After fewer than 7,000 people visited the hall in 2012, Yokkaichi decided in 2013 to close the Australian Memorial Hall.

The hall sat abandoned for a few months before it was ripped down the following year. The gum trees are gone, too.

Kamone, the giant platypus, ended up with a private collector in Mie Prefecture. A diorama of the Expo ’70 pavilion and stuffed red kangaroo are on display in the Yokkaichi Port Building.

In place of the hall, Yokkaichi built some tennis courts, with officials hastening to add that they use the same Plexichushion material used at the Australian Open.

With no memorial hall to head to after the Osaka-Kansai Expo, then, the Australian Pavilion needed somewhere else to go. This pavilion was in the Aichi mode of being bland and unexciting, so was unlikely to find a relocation site.

The theme of the pavilion had been “Chasing the Sun.” It had already been built using reusable and repurposed materials from previous major international events.

Expo organizers set up the Reuse Matching Project, which takes materials used in the pavilions and puts them to good use. The Australia Pavilion was part of the project, so it will be dismantled, and its parts repurposed in a practical manner. A lot of the exhibits will be used in future events.

The fate of the respective pavilions seems to mirror their times. Australia and Japan in 1970 sought to display their dynamism and looked to the future. The 2005 fair had a new outlook on sustainable living. And, somewhat cynically perhaps, 2025 astroturfed.

Expo 2025 was held with the aim of achieving a society in which the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals — 17 sustainable development goals set out at the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2015. It also aimed to realize Japan’s national strategy: Society 5.0.

It’s hard to give much credence to the idea of sustainability in world’s fairs when you consider Osaka-Kansai was preceded by Dubai and will be followed by Riyadh, though both petrostate cities will undoubtedly have improved their reputations through association with such a notable cause.

I suppose it’s the thought that counts, though. And my thoughts about expos have proved wrong in the past. I was one of many sceptics of Osaka-Kansai 2025, but it overcame initial hassles and is widely regarded as having been a success. It may even have turned a profit.

Having been raised a child of the Cold War when the superpowers used expos to show how they were better than their rivals, then getting the Internet that made the world a tiny place in some ways, I had come to feel that world’s fairs were a bit of an anochronism.

But the longevity of the Expo ’70 Australia Pavilion, albeit falling short of its proclaimed “perpetual monument” status, success of this year’s fair and the prospect of greenwashing petrobucks being funneled into the future have changed my mind a little.

While there is no sense of awe and pride such as that inspired by the brilliant architecture of the 1970 building, I can at least take solace in knowing that Australia’s legacy of participating in three world expos in Japan includes someone having a 25-meter-long fibreglass platypus on display in their private collection.