The Province of South Holland (PZH) and the Municipality of Rotterdam builded a pavilion at the China Flower EXPO 2021 in Shanghai, at the invitation of the Shanghai sub-municipality of Chongming because of the sister relationship between Shanghai and Rotterdam. The China Flower Expo (a Chinese version of the Floriade) is the largest and most influential flower event in China. The opening of the 10th edition of the China Flower EXPO, themed “Blossom with the Chinese Dream”, was on May 21. The Expo ran until July 2, 2021, withmore than 3 million visitors, mainly from China itself, but also from abroad. The organization received government officials from all provinces, groups of companies including state and private companies and individual visitors and day trippers.
With the resources made available from Shanghai Chongming, PZH and Rotterdam have built a 500 m2 pavilion based on the design of Green Art International / Hanging Water Tank under the direction of designer Bert Dautzenberg with the title: Resilient City – Feeding & Greening Megacities.
As Rotterdam is within the delta region of the lower Rhine River, and is actively responding to the impact of climate change on all aspects of the city, such as flooding, high summer temperatures, and limited resources. When the city faces these challenges squarely, this does not hinder the city’s efforts to build a sustainable future with the spirit of “making it true”. Rotterdam is part of the “One Hundred Resilient Cities” initiative, which is dedicated to their transition towards a future-oriented city. Famous projects such as sponge gardens, green and edible roofs, and floating projects such as exhibition halls, farms, and recycling parks all reflect Rotterdam’s commitment to building a sustainable city.
Therefore, the pavilion focused on themes such as climate adaptation, food security and safety, modern agriculture and horticulture, biodiversity and air quality, because these are also important themes and spearheads in the policy of the province of South Holland and of Rotterdam. The core design of the Rotterdam-PZH Garden started from a Maze, with the theme of “Uncovering the Mystery and Leading to the Future”: on one hand, it contained the challenges of climate change and urbanization, and on the other hand, it symbolised people’s efforts to solve the challenges where measures must be taken.
The designer of the exhibition garden, founder of Hanging Water Tank Mr. Bert Dautzenberg, combined the creation of a resilient city that adapts to climate change with the concept of urban supply and green development in his design, which perfectly fitted the city of Rotterdam with “Make It Happen”. Slogan to build a vision for a sustainable future. The components of Hanging Water Tank were also implemented in the design of the PZH-Rotterdam Garden.
At this Flower Expo, the Rotterdam Exhibition Garden in South Holland Province also specially invited sister schools. The Wolfert Bilingual School of Rotterdam and the Peace and Bilingual School of Shanghai Pinghe School have exhibited their visions of the future by including the art works of the students from the two schools in its design.
For more information about the Rotterdam-PZH Garden project which has been designed by Bert Dautzenberg (Founder of Hanging Water Tank), please have a look at the presentation below;