Overview

“Expo Milano 2015” was held in Milan, Italy, from May 1 to October 31, 2015. Organized by Expo 2015 S.p.A., it was an International Registered Exhibition, or registered Expo, and the second Expo in the city after Expo 1906 Milan. Over 184 days, the Expo recorded about 21.5 million visits.

Origins and the bid

Milan competed with Izmir, Turkey, to host the Expo. On March 31, 2008, the member states of the International Exhibitions Bureau (Bureau International des Expositions, BIE) chose Milan by 86 votes to 65. Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema greeted the result by saying, “It shows that when Italy pulls together and puts its best energy to work it can succeed.” The BIE’s 148th General Assembly approved the Expo’s registration on November 23, 2010.

Theme and subthemes

The theme, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” placed food, nutrition, and sustainability at the center of the Expo. Seven subthemes ranged from science for food safety, security and quality, and innovation in the agro-food supply chain, to dietary education, solidarity and cooperation on food, and food in the world’s cultures and ethnic groups. The mascot, Foody, drew on the work of the painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo and was made up of 11 characters representing different foods.

The site

The 110-hectare site lay about 15 kilometers northwest of central Milan on former industrial and warehouse land between Milan and Rho. A 2009 concept plan, prepared with an advisory board that included Stefano Boeri, Ricky Burdett and Jacques Herzog, imagined the Expo “within a large Planetary Garden,” with equal plots for every country. The final layout kept the plan’s grid, inspired by the Roman camp, and its surrounding canals: a 1.5-kilometer Decumano crossed by a 350-meter Cardo. At the end of the Cardo stood the Tree of Life, the Expo’s symbol, created by Marco Balich and built by a consortium of companies from Brescia. About 14 million people watched its evening shows.

While the Expo was still being planned, scholars saw it as part of a wider rethinking. Writing before it opened, architectural historians Gaia Caramellino, Alessandro De Magistris and Federico Deambrosis argued that the economic crises of the early 21st century were scaling back the ambitions of European Expos. They pointed to the debate over the characteristics of Expo 2015 Milan, along with Switzerland’s 2002 national exhibition, as evidence of a search for formats that would limit economic impact, loosen the idea of a single enclosed exhibition area and spread the event’s effects and benefits across a wider territory. In the same volume, editors Laura H. Hollengreen and Rebecca Rouse linked the planned focus on sustainable food systems to a concern with food and agriculture that Expos had shown since their beginnings.

Pavilions and international participation

The BIE counts 139 official participants. According to organizers’ closing figures, 145 countries took part, along with three international organizations: the United Nations, the European Union and CERN. Fifty-four participants built their own pavilions. Others joined thematic clusters, six devoted to a crop or food group (rice, cocoa and chocolate, coffee, fruit and legumes, spices, and cereals and tubers) and three to climate zones (arid zones, Bio-Mediterraneum, and islands, sea and food).

National pavilions interpreted the theme in many ways. The United Kingdom’s “Hive,” a 17-meter aluminum lattice, drew attention to the role of bees in pollination. Austria recreated a woodland whose microclimate cooled its pavilion, and Switzerland offered free food samples with a warning that stocks would not be replenished. The United Arab Emirates, host of the next registered Expo, presented a pavilion designed by Norman Foster, and Kazakhstan previewed Expo 2017 Astana. Pavilion Zero, which introduced the theme, and the Future Food District, with an interactive supermarket, were among the most distinctive spaces of the Expo.

Legacy

Beyond the pavilions, the Expo produced a policy legacy. The Milan Charter, proposed by the Italian government with civil society partners, set out principles on nutrition, sustainability and the universal right to food, and was presented to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on October 16, 2015. Mayors of more than 100 cities signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, which is supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Most pavilions were dismantled after the Expo closed, but the Tree of Life, Palazzo Italia and Pavilion Zero were kept on site. In 2019, the City of Milan adopted the plan for MIND, the Milano Innovation District, which is turning the former Expo grounds into a science and technology district. It brings together the Human Technopole life sciences research center, the new Galeazzi hospital, a state university campus, and a park covering more than half the site.

Expo 2015 Milan made food a global subject of debate and turned a temporary exhibition ground into the foundation of a new district for research and innovation.