Shanghai Daily news

In Italy, the children's game of pick-up sticks is known as "Shanghai" after an ancient Chinese game. That famous pastime has inspired the design of Italy's national pavilion at the Expo.

For children of the 1970s and 1980s in Shanghai, a game of pick-up sticks stirs nostalgia. We all know the game, it's known worldwide: Drop a bunch of sticks and try to remove them one by one without disturbing the others - a game of dexterity and mental concentration.

In Italy, the game is known as "Shanghai" (the game was played in ancient China, maybe Marco Polo took it home), and Italy recently announced that its national pavilion design at the World Expo 2010 is inspired by pick-up sticks.

This comes as a charming surprise for Shanghai, the 2010 Expo host. Milan, Italy, will play host to the World Expo in 2015.

The rectangular Italy Pavilion is laced with intersecting lines - representing a number of pick-up sticks.

It looks as though the shadow of jumbled sticks had been projected onto the surface, and the surface itself then sliced accordingly.

The 3,600-square-meter structure is comprised of functional modules of different shapes, bounded by the "sticks." They can be assembled into smaller structures and after the Expo the project will be disassembled and reconfigured.

The Expo theme is "Better City, Better Life," so living green, recycling and reusing urban construction materials are part of ideal city life. "Green" was also a standard for Italian designers, since national pavilions will be removed after the six-month event, said Giampaolo Imbrighi, the designer.

"These parts can be rebuilt on single squares of Italian cities, as a reminder of the contemporary quality of the Shanghai Expo amid the continuous and industrious buzz of Italian urban everyday life," said the Italian organizers.

Italy will use 6,000 square meters for its pavilion, surrounded on three sides by water, which will reflect natural light into the exhibition space.

The design uses a cutting-edge construction material known as transparent concrete.

Imbrighi's winning design, chosen among 65 candidates in Europe, is "characterized by a very flexible internal space, where an artificial landscape made of alleys, streets and squares is situated," said Franco Purini, professor architecture at Rome's La Sapienza University. He is a member of the selection panel.

The pavilion represents Italian cultural values in contemporary terms and proposes original solutions to urban problems, on the technological and structural levels, said Beniamino Quintieri, Italy's Expo commissioner-general.

The lanes between different parts of the pavilion will remind people of Italy's ancient city lanes, as well as Shanghai's longtang (lane) and traditional shikumen (stone gate) that marked them.

"In traditional Shanghai, every home was connected to its neighbors and arranged in narrow alleys. Every alley had an access characterized by a stone arch or shikumen," said Imbrighi.

Strolling in the Italy Pavilion, visitors will enter a combination of different cultures. They walk down Shanghai-style alleys leading to Italian-style plazas within the structure, said Quintieri of the Italian Expo.

"This is the aim of the pavilion - configuring a solution matching the shape and the spirit of Italian and Chinese traditional environments, and reading them through a key representing innovation," Imbrighi said.