Interview: Hiroaki Miyata

Well, let me start with some background. Technology has been a major driver of change in the ways people have lived together throughout history. Humanity has experienced an agricultural revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and now what we call the Information Revolution. The 1970 Osaka Expo was held at a time when there was great enthusiasm for the future [in the economic context of that era], and I think that Expo was an exciting opportunity for many people to experience a certain vision of things to come.

Expo 2025, in contrast, comes at a very different but extremely crucial time, when the entire world is searching for paths toward a better future in the midst of change brought about by the information revolution.

The agricultural revolution made owning land important, and the industrial revolution did the same for money. Both food and fossil fuels are limited resources, so exclusive ownership made sense under these systems. But data, the key resource of the information revolution, is more powerful when shared. This is evident when you look at how the development of vaccines during the Covid pandemic was accelerated by the sharing of genetic data. The explosive growth of generative AI is also based on ‘shared’ information.

The information revolution has brought much instability and confusion with it, and inequality remains an inescapable fact of life around the world. But I also think all the change we’re seeing is opening up opportunities to imagine a better future. That’s why I came up with the concept of Better Co-Being for the Resonance of Lives theme.

The central question at the Expo is about the kind of future that can be envisioned when people from all over the world gather together. I believe that by each country [at Expo 2025] bringing and sharing its own vision of the future, being influenced by the visions of others, and discussing them, we can move toward a better future as a species.

One experience that really influenced me was seeing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris when I was 20 years old and studying at Tokyo University’s School of Integrated Health Sciences​​. Much of Da Vinci’s work is shrouded in mystery, so I can’t say much definitive about it, but in a sense all of his work comes back to the Mona Lisa. 

I had never been that interested in the Mona Lisa before visiting the Louvre, but when I faced the real thing for the first time, the experience was striking​​. I really felt like I was seeing eye to eye with the person in the painting and that our smiles were joined, and I wondered what on earth da Vinci had sought to accomplish by creating such a tremendous experience.​​

When you look at the formation of the human psyche, it starts when a baby, born in a state where they are unable to live without help from others, experiences an act of kindness—being picked up for the first time—and their eyes meet those of another human.

So when you think of the positive feelings you experience as you reach out to others, and how these experiences form your psychology; this is something that’s been at the heart of the human experience for tens of thousands of years. When we think about building communities and nurturing bonds between people, we realise that culture and civilisation are rooted in the positive feelings that emerge among people when they interact​​.

We are connected by smiles and positive feelings, as I felt when I met Mona Lisa’s smile. That experience inspired me and made me want to work toward bringing people together. My hope is to help bring about a better, more sustainable future with an emphasis on wellbeing, which led me to the idea of Better Co-Being.

Traditional architecture tends toward delineated spaces, clear boundaries between ownership and non-ownership, and demonstrations of a certain kind of power. But I wanted to do things differently; I wanted to conceive of a pavilion apt for an age in which sharing counts, and create an experience of seeing the future together, feeling connected to diverse people and diverse worlds. My discussions with the two members of [the architectural group] SANAA​​ led us to create a cloud-like, seamless space with a forest at the centre of the Expo.​​

The building is made of thin stainless steel, but it floats like a cloud on this grid. Seen from within it, the sky looks different depending on the angle and the weather. On a cloudy day it appears as if the space itself is melting away, being sucked into the sky. The idea is that how you see the sky may differ depending on where you are and your background, but it’s still the same sky we’re all living under. The pavilion makes you feel liberated, like you’re floating. I have so much respect for the SANAA team and I think they did a wonderful job.​​

Many past Expos have been based on placing an artificial object at the centre, beginning with the Eiffel Tower [built for the 1889 World’s Fair]. This time, through our discussions with [architect and Expo 2025 site design producer] Sou Fujimoto, we decided to centre an ecosystem rather than a specific man-made object. That’s because when we think about our future, we should place our visions in the context of the global ecosystem.

We’re creating the forest by transplanting trees from around the Expo site that would otherwise have been cut down during construction. I hope to place works of art in the forest that will serve as a trigger for people to think about issues such as biodiversity, peace and human rights, and health and wellbeing, all while providing a futuristic experience.

I’m working on the pavilion and the forest together with Yuko Hasegawa, director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa​​. Approaching our task through the context of art, but also via fields such as history and geopolitics, we will ponder what kind of questions we should be asking today.

We’re still in the process of making final adjustments and I can’t reveal much yet, but we do plan to offer an experience that’s connected to everyday life while offering different perspectives when seen in the context of digital connections.

Rather than having everyone dream the same dream and aim for a single goal, we want to highlight the fact that people have different values and interests, they react differently to things and exhibit different feelings, so the experiences we provide should take that into account. The challenge is to design experiences that stay with you and move you regardless of who you are and where you come from.