France unveils its pavilion for the Osaka 2025 World Expo
The France Pavilion for the Osaka 2025 World Expo was unveiled on Tuesday, 9 January, in the halls of the French Foreign Ministry on the Quai d’Orsay, Paris, under the esteemed patronage of the President of the French Republic. The Expo will be held from 13 April to 13 October 2025. Its theme is “Designing tomorrow’s society, imagining our lives in the future”.
Olivier Becht, French Minister of State with Responsibility for Foreign Trade, Attractiveness and French People Overseas, and Jacques Maire, Commissioner General for France Osaka 2025 and Chairman of the Compagnie Française des Expositions (French Exhibition Company (COFREX)) introduced this presentation, unveiling the pavilion’s architecture, its guiding theme and the outlines of the programming of events to over 250 French and Japanese dignitaries.
The France Pavilion is France’s flagship at this world event, showcasing French innovation and offering an immersive experience that is accessible to every audience. Through its central theme of a Hymn to Love», it will convey a new vision for the future, with a strong message about the meaning of life and its finest expression, Love: Loving yourself, Loving others, Loving the planet, as well as the love story between France and Japan.
For Olivier Becht: “The France Pavilion, flying the colours of the France Brand, will showcase the full range of our savoir-faire to visitors from all over the world. It will demonstrate the consistency of our political, economic, cultural and social initiatives which aim to hasten the energy and digital transition, promote our heritage and ensure the cohesion of our ever-more inclusive society. Put simply, it will convey the bold spirit of inventiveness that is the hallmark of our country, and will arouse a yearning for France in every visitor.”
The France Pavilion: A Hymn to Love
In the face of the great challenges of our age, France is responding in an optimistic and committed way with its values and its sensibilities. To the more than 28 million people expected to visit it, it is offering an outstanding experience, an immersive France Pavilion and a landmark building that embodies A Hymn to Love.
The France Pavilion has been co-designed by the Coldefy & Associés Architectes Urbanistes andCRA-Carlo Ratti Associati to reflect this hymn to Love in its architecture, exhibition spaces and programming. It will be offering a unique visitor experience, from the bakery and cake shop to the bistro, the temporary exhibitions to the shop, featuring a multisensorial journey with a wealth of positive emotions.
With its modern, pared-back style, the Pavilion’s facade evokes a theatre set that has been opened up to its audience, while at the same time maintaining an air of mystery. As in a theatre, it side facades are completely screened, and allow access to the various areas through passages that will also serve as places to meet. The huge garden on the roof is a key element of the France Pavilion’s permanent exhibition, and it will be revealed at the last minute.
The France Pavilion has been designed with a sustainable, responsible approach, and is completely temporary in order to make it optimal for recycling. Its metal structure can be reassembled by elements and modules that can be reused.
Its outer shell, screens and gardens are designed to act as a second skin, and will protect the interior of the Pavilion to improve the building’s thermal performance by reducing heat transfer. Together with its natural ventilation, it will reduce energy consumption for heating and air conditioning.
Through its committed representation of France and French companies, the visitor experience promises, emotion, vision and meaning. The experience begins right from the queue, which begins under the Pavilion’s entrance porch allowing everyone to ascend the building by gradually travelling up a gently-sloping ramp. Leading into a huge hall decorated in a typical French chic style, it will be the first place to meet with our partners, and will continue with the hanging of an enormous Aubusson tapestry entitled “Ashitaka soothes his demonic wound”, inspired by an image from the film entitled “Princess Mononoke” by Hayao Miyazaki. The permanent exhibition is designed to be a walk down lovers’ lane, one which opens up an infinite dialogue between three different aspects of love: loving yourself, loving others and loving nature.
Throughout the 6 months that the Expo runs, the France Pavilion’s programming will be based on the editorial line of A Hymn to Love, on six temporary exhibitions presenting living skills, works of art and live immersive experiences in a designated space, as well as twelve themed fortnights designed around the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will enliven the Pavilion with seminars, talks, keynote speakers, screenings, shows, etc.
The Pavilion will also be accessible remotely and virtually, particularly for members of the public who are far away and for young people, with the aim of opening it up to a much wider audience. As an immersive experience, it can be accessed from home or from within specially dedicated spaces.
A tool for outreach, development and attractiveness
The aim of the programming scheduled at the France Pavilion at the Osaka 2025 Expo is to highlight France’s economic momentum as a country that enjoys its own energy independence and a next-generation low-carbon reindustrialisation policy, and knows how to rise to current scientific and social challenges, such as an ageing population, while being known as a world leader in the lifestyle sector, including the cultural and creative industries.
“The France Pavilion seeks to provide a response to social and environmental challenges by inspiring individual and group commitment. It offers a new vision of the future, one guided by the meaning of life and its most beautiful feature, Love, through a shared, universal worldview. Art, science and technology are all useful resources that contribute to this loving vision of the future. The France Pavilion is offering up this quest for meaning to its visitors from all around the world”, says Jacques Maire, Commissioner General for France Osaka 2025 and Chairman of COFREX.
For the businesses collaborating with the France Pavilion, the Osaka 2025 World Expo will be a great showcase for their expert knowledge and innovations. The historical excellence of French savoir-faire is world-renowned in many different areas including the luxury sector, aeronautics and space exploration, energy, the environment, culture and science, etc. With our much-appreciated and sought-after talents, over the years we have demonstrated our ability to adapt to technological evolution and offer solutions that are more and more innovative.
Japan is the world’s third-largest economic power in the world, right behind the United States and China, and it is also one of the world’s biggest importers and the gateway to the North Asian market. The Japanese market is also the 3rd biggest e-commerce market in the world. Japan, with its wide-ranging skills and advanced technologies and its unique culture, attracts a great many international companies, andis often a preferred test market for global launches of new products and services. This is where French knowledge and skill enjoy an excellent brand image in the worlds of cosmetics, luxury goods, fashion and cuisine.
In Osaka, the France Pavilion wants to reach out to the Japanese people, an audience with high expectations and with points of reference that are often far removed from those found in the Western world. It will be able to illustrate the “France 2030 plan” for reindustrialisation, and stimulate partnerships with a Japan that, via its “New Capitalism” project, is seeking answers to its economic issues and carbon neutrality by 2050.
The Osaka 2025 Expo: Where the world meets
Ever since they were created, in every age, universal exhibitions have been helping to produce progressive solutions to major world challenges. They have become global events that bring together all key players, and are perceived as being some of the most important international events; along with the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup.
They are open to all, and promote and make it possible to discover the latest innovations from participating countries, enterprises, multi-lateral organisations, academic and research institutions and NGOs.
Osaka 2025 World Expo’s aim is to act as an international laboratory for innovation and expert knowledge coming from public and private stakeholders to build the society of the future around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and to share them with as many people as possible. Over 160 countries will be represented, and 28 million visitors are expected to come to the event.
The Expo is located on Yumeshima Island in Osaka Bay, covering over 155 hectares. Its overall architecture has been entrusted to the Japanese architect Sosuke Fujimoto. All of the pavilions will be joined by a “roof ring” measuring a circumference of 2 km, within a site with three macro-zones: Green World, Pavilion World and Water World. The area given over to the national pavilions (Pavilion World) will be divided into three sub-themes: “Saving Lives”, “Empowering Lives” and “Connecting Lives”. The France Pavilion is located in the ”Empowering Lives” zone, and means “our lives” in a wider sense, i.e., people, society, the living, and questions the place of humans in their environment.
The France Pavilion is strategically located facing the main entrance, benefitting from exceptional visibility right from the underground train station exit for the Osaka Expo 2025. It is also located directly opposite the Japan Pavilion, its position again underlining its attractiveness and ensuring high numbers of visitors.