You Must See Alif & Terra Pavilions in Expo City

This post may include affiliate links. If you make bookings through these links, I will get a small commission at no cost to you, which helps support the costs of running this website. Note that I also sometimes link a business that appears in my stories; these links are usually not affiliate links, but do support them anyway.

-----

Alif and Terra are two showcases in Expo City, which is a new township constructed for Dubai’s World Expo 2020. I finally had the opportunity to visit Expo City three years after the World Expo. While I think the whole township is worth taking the time to explore (especially if you’re a sustainability professional), if you only have a day and not particularly interested in the World Expo, you should see these two Pavilions.

Expo City had three broad districts, each with its own sustainability theme: Mobility, Sustainability, and Opportunity. Each district had a Thematic Pavilion as its centrepiece. Of these three, two contain exhibits which are must-sees on a visit to Expo City.

The Alif and Terra Pavilions surprised me with their unusual framing of the topics of Mobility and Sustainability. The showcase designers aimed for an emotional learning experience, and it shows. I thought that it was such an imaginative approach that I had to write a separate article about it. But I will try not to give away too much, so that I don’t pre-empt the experience.

Inspirational sustainability

Expo City might not feature on the typical Dubai itinerary. However, I think it should be the number two spot after Old Dubai. Now, of course Dubai has other iconic attractions that deserve to rank higher. You can’t go to Dubai and not see the Burj Khalifa, for example. And I think Museum of the Future deserves a trip out just for its own sake.

However, in terms of overall neighbourhoods, Expo City is high on the list. The township was actually holistically planned, and specifically designed to be a sustainable city – at least, with the best knowledge available in the late 2010s. The whole city meant to inspire the sustainability transitions we need in this time of environmental crises. The result is different, and feels more liveable, than other Dubai neighbourhoods and suburbia preceding it.

Additionally, its Expo City history gives it a unique point of interest. Thus, although new, it already has history. See my Expo City guide for more background on Expo Dubai 2020, and how to explore it.

Although Expo City is actually going to be a normal township, you can still visit its World Expo attractions as a tourist. Fortunately, its two must-see attractions, Alif and Terra Pavilions, are part of the combined Attractions Pass. This pass is valid for one day, which is perfect for visitors on a day visit.

These two pavilions were the Expo 2020 Thematic Pavilions for the Mobility and Sustainability districts, respectively. While they are essentially museums of two of the Expo Dubai 2020 sustainability themes, the topics and how they were approached are evergreen, and reach beyond their original context.

Alif Pavilion (Mobility District)

I’ll be honest. Although an Expo City staffer later recommended that I visit Alif first, I didn’t. I actually went around Opportunity District first, then Sustainability, and Mobility last. (Note: You should do it the other way around. And you could even skip Opportunity District if you’re only visiting for the day.)

One reason why it didn’t occur to me to do Alif Pavilion first, was because of the Mobility theme. In case you weren’t aware, in the energy transition and ESG circles, the term ‘mobility’ almost exclusively refers to the mobility transition. As in, things like getting transportation vehicles towards low carbon emission versions.

So I assumed that the mobility conversation during Expo 2020 revolved around this as well. After all, the mobility-related exhibits in the Museum of the Future, which I had just visited, also supported this interpretation. And while the topic is important, it just wasn’t that interesting to me.

But when I finally went inside Alif Pavilion, I immediately realised I was wrong.

Yes, the immediate technical relevance of sustainable mobility is related to low carbon mobility. But Alif’s take on mobility is far more imaginative, addressing mobility in its fundamental essence, and thus much more inspirational than I expected.

A design of movement

Mobility is depicted here not just in terms of cars and planes. In fact, vehicles feature in only a small portion of the exhibits in Alif Pavilion.

Rather, mobility is discussed in terms of movement of people and goods, and most importantly of ideas. After all, the human outcome and significance of the mobility of people and goods is not that some people moved from A to B, or that some cars or semiconductors moved across borders, but the exchange and evolution of ideas that happen when we encounter other people, and new things from other places. Alif is about mobility, but also why mobility matters.

I paid more attention when I realised this. It was also then that I noticed, the whole building design reflected movement. From the curving horizontal lines of its facade that suggested vector lines, to the Arabian mare and her foal in front of the building, a symbol of movement and speed. And its shape, seen from above, looks like a fidget spinner.

The sense of movement continues the moment you enter the building. For the exhibits don’t start right away. You had to go up in a lift to the beginning of the exhibit, which is again an experience of motion. I thought it was a very nice touch.

Mobility not only in space, but also time

But Alif Pavilion’s visionary interpretation went beyond even this. Movement in space? No, movement is in space-time.

There is a very long relief mural near the beginning of the exhibit, which reflects the intermeshing of physical movement with its effect on the evolution of technology over time. It traces the collective human journey from our primitive antiquity through the story of movement and exploration, with the story temporarily pausing at the last image of human space exploration.

Throughout the mural, the tools and vehicles the people took with them grew more advanced. I was impressed by the detail. I mean, they didn’t forget the invention of sandals and knotting, and its significance to facilitating movement.

I’m sure there is plenty to notice if you sat there to examine the reliefs with a bunch of history nerds. It’s the kind of display you either skim past in a few minutes, or want to dissect for hours.

The rest of the Pavilion followed the same theme, but expanded it further. It takes you through the development of technologies that amplify movement in physical space, then digitalisation and the movement of data, then the UAE’s Mars probe launch into space, and finished with the reaching of yet further into the future.

Travel and curiosity

Many of the exhibits, such as the relief mural, encompassed the story of mobility for all humanity. But Alif Pavilion also often highlights Arab or West Asian luminaries.

I was happy to see al-Kindi, and the various explorers and geographers of the 9th-11th centuries. There was even a scholar in Andalusian Spain who didn’t travel himself, but hosted travellers and merchants. He must have been the OG couchsurfing super host. From their stories, he ended up compiling accurate geographical knowledge of Europe, North Africa, and Arabia.

Baghdad’s legendary House of Wisdom features at the start, particularly because of its prolific translation effort. It was Baghdad that translated the knowledge and books of past civilisations from a range of languages such as Sanskrit, Farsi, and Greek.

This was why Baghdad quickly became the epicentre of the Abbasid Golden Age, and a centre of science and the humanities. The translation emphasis of the House of Wisdom also facilitated the spreading of ideas from the past to the future, and made possible the eventual re-discovery of Greek works by Europe centuries later.

It got me to thinking, maybe the way to precipitate a Golden Age is not through making it mandatory for everyone in your country to master “the” language of knowledge. Rather, maybe it is faster to have translators translate knowledge to the local language.

Nor was it necessary for a young nation to accumulate thousands of years of knowledge by itself. Not if you could make a place where scholars from older civilisations all want to be, because they could do cool things together.

Terra Pavilion (Sustainability District)

As a sustainability professional from the environmental side, of course I would go to the pavilion of the Sustainability District. And it didn’t disappoint.

As you walk towards Terra Pavilion, tall pillars topped with angled discs grab your attention. These are the solar panels powering Expo City. Or at least, up to 4 GwH per year.

Aside from the ‘solar trees’, there were also ‘water trees’. These collect atmospheric water, which is mainly dew in the desert. Designed to mimic dew harvesting cacti, the water trees capture up to 3,000 litres of water a day.

A design of balance

Terra’s architecture matches the circular or oblong shapes of the solar and water trees around it. It suited the theme of the Pavilion, evoking themes of balance and sustainability.

Inside, Terra has more amenities than just the exhibit. If you’re doing the Expo City must-sees in a day, this pavilion is a good stop for lunch.

There are two parallel sections in Terra: Ocean and Forest. I went through both (but of course, I did Ocean first). Both have a similar layout and hit similar messaging beats – again, subliminally communicating balance. So if you’re pressed for time, you could pick just one. For the sake of brevity, I will cover both simultaneously below.

I think the unique aspect of the design choices in the Terra exhibits were in creating an emotional experience of sustainability learning. I don’t mean creating emotional responses to the topic, which is common. But creating an experience that uses emotion to reinforce learning. Terra just helps us discover our reality, and this discovery is an emotional learning experience.

I thought it was very well done, which is uncommon in environmental messaging. I am sure the design team must have included arts professionals and not just science ones.

Go deep

Unlike Alif, where you begin by going up, you have to go down the stairs to the Terra sections. Choosing the Ocean exhibit first, I entered upon a path that mimicked going through an aquarium. Through openings in wall, you could always see ‘the ocean’ beyond.

But I was surprised to discover that Terra didn’t do the usual thing of focusing on charismatic ocean things like coral reefs, whales and dolphins, nor even turtles, mangroves, or seagrass. Instead, the path quickly takes you even further down into the deep ocean.

It was an unusual choice, but it does better reflect the proportionality between the part of the ocean that usually comes to mind to us as land creatures, vs the rest of the actual ocean. Pretty bold design choice.

There were information placards, but equally some things are communicated as show, not tell. An oyster bed along one wall section, barnacles across another. I passed through arches that resembled whale bones.

The path becomes gradually more surreal. Lights flowed beside the path like a stream of bioluminescent plankton, and lights dotted the ceilings like a regiment of anglerfish. It was at once pretty enough to fascinate children, but layered enough to touch thinking adults.

The blend of familiar and disturbing appropriately ends at an exhibit called Sea of Consumption, as though we had walked down to the deep ocean where the debris of our modern world accumulates.

The Forest section does the same unusual choice. It doesn’t focus on aboveground ecosystems, but takes you down to fungi and the root biome in the soil.

The insanity of our consumption

Looking back, I think I understand what they were going for. The description for Terra on the Expo City website frames it as ‘an emotional journey to understand our impact on the environment’.

So they made a different choice than the usual, opting against communicating more surficial facts, in favour of priming the visitor for depth. Because you needed that, for the next exhibit.

I loved the Sea of Consumption exhibit. The topic of consumption is very hard to approach, because almost all of us are guilty. It’s so pervasive, and our modern lives so time-poor, that many of us don’t feel we could do anything about it – which increases the sense of guilt. Given this context, I thought the exhibit did a good job of showing the usual facts of our unsustainable habits, but differently.

Something about the aesthetic comes across slightly unhinged. Like you were in an eerie carnival in a dystopian dream. TVs played ‘advertising’ in a 1950s aesthetic, but it’s “honest ads”. The loss of coral reef to ocean acidification is depicted through a panto sideshow. Throughout, you were surrounded by the waste of consumerism.

The Hall of Consumption has a different emphasis. It was more about reflecting on the materials we extract to feed the consumption, rather than the waste it creates.

I think they were going for a mindless, ever-hungry ambience. The aesthetic is reminiscent of a scrapyard. Only machines, no nature left.

From a mindset of costs, to one of values

This point is pressed further in the Archive of Three Things. Here, we are being flooded. We are asked the question, what three things would you save if a flood were to submerge all?

The exhibit displays the answers of people previously polled. It doesn’t attempt to draw any conclusions, or find commonalities on what things people chose. You’re just left to read their different names, and see their different faces, and contemplate what three items they hold most dear.

On the Forest side, leaving the exhibit takes you through a circular space. A mechanical sculpture lies in the middle, a white flower with various insects – both ‘pretty’ ones like butterflies, as well as dung beetles. It automatically spins in a repetitive routine, so wait a bit if you catch it in between plays.

---

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

– William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

---

Written along the circular walls were verses of poetry, from Blake’s Auguries of Innocence. I don’t quite know why, but reading them after coming out of the Terra exhibits teared me up.

The sanity of action and collaboration

Fortunately, Terra lifts you back up again at the end. Both Ocean and Forest finish in a section that is about solutions, hope, and regeneration. But again, the framing is not about prescribing the solutions. It still asks questions, but this time they’re about helping you figure out your own role.

After all, collective action means you don’t have to do everything. But the collective does, through everyone doing something – that adds up to everything.

Bonus: Vision Pavilion (Sustainability District)

The current Attractions Pass grants access to three pavilions. Alif and Terra are included, and the third is the Vision Pavilion. When I went to Expo City, the equivalent pass covered 8 pavilions, and which still included Vision. It wasn’t necessarily at the top of my list. But since I had a few days, I intended to visit all the pavilions, so I went into Vision Pavilion.

The reason why it wouldn’t have made my shortlist if it hadn’t been included in the pass, is because this pavilion isn’t about sustainability, nor was it about Expo 2020. The Vision pavilion was a surprise gift by the Expo 2020 organisers to the Dubai ruler, a sort of homage to his vision and leadership.

However, having gone inside, I have to say that it was unexpectedly interesting. It kind of does deserve to be on the Attractions Pass, though personally the Expo Museum is a contender too, just through sheer historical value. But then, the Vision Pavilion is very conveniently located. It’s in the Sustainability District, not far from Terra. You could easily pick it up on the way back to Al Wasl Plaza.

Since this Pavilion is the third attraction on the Attractions Pass, it’s worth me giving an overview of why it was kind of interesting.

The hobbies of a prince

It’s easier for an homage pavilion to be interesting, if the person it’s for is already interesting. Luckily, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum had childhood hobbies that translate well for a museum.

The main part of the pavilion tells you about Sheikh Mohammed through his hobbies. As a child, he was apparently a sort of naturalist. He had a hoard of weird things collected from the environment around him, and particularly liked to hoard specimens of creepy crawlies like bugs and scorpions.

As a youth, he was quite properly Arab in that he was into poetry, and also wrote poetry. He entered poetry competitions, but used a pseudonym so that people wouldn’t know who he was. Perhaps Arab visitors would be better able to appreciate the exhibits related to his poetry.

However, by far the most prominent of his hobbies is his love of horses. His stables have bred some of the finest race horses. There was a whole section for his (late) favourite horse, Dubai Millennium.

One room was entirely occupied with a giant bust of Dubai Millennium, carved of grey Spanish marble. It was part of a light projection, which made it seem like the horse was alive, and its mane blowing in the wind, with a poetry recitation in honour of the horse. This exhibit alone was interesting, in terms of how they achieved the effect with only a light projection.

A princely upbringing

Vision also tells you about Sheikh Mohammed’s upbringing as a prince. He was born in 1949, so it was still quite a traditional princely training.

Part of it involves learning desert survival. His father left him in the desert with a mentor to learn bedouin survival skills such as star navigation, falconry, and desert-craft, including surviving scorpion stings. At the end, the mentor leaves him by himself, and he was expected to stay alive in the desert for a period of time with what he has learned. It was kind of badass, honestly.

I asked Ahmed, the pavilion guide in the room, whether today’s princes were still required to do this. The young man tried not to smile, and told me they are. “But nowadays it is modern. So there are amenities,” he admitted ruefully.

Pearling was declining by the time Sheikh Mohammed was a young man. Nonetheless, Dubai hadn’t begun its economic diversification journey yet. So, because pearling was the nation’s main economy, the prince was expected to know what it involves. His father then sent him to go live aboard pearl diving boats at sea.

By this time, I had already gone to the Culture of the Sea museum in the Shindagha heritage complex. So I knew that this probably means he didn’t come ashore until the pearling season was over.

A charity about vision

The last part of Vision Pavilion is about his visionary leadership, and how it progressed Dubai’s economic modernisation, as well as what that provides for its people – for example, universal healthcare.

Noor Dubai, a charitable initiative he founded, was particularly highlighted. The charity focuses on prevention and providing treatment for blindness and impaired vision.

At the time, I thought it was a good initiative, being someone who has been short-sighted since I was a child. But I didn’t really get the association until I’m literally writing this article. It’s a charity founded by Sheikh Mohammed about restoring vision, in a Pavilion dedicated to his vision. Duh.

Rapid development doesn’t mean everything is rapid

You certainly need exceptional vision, and a united nation, to achieve what Dubai has. The fact that it aimed very high, and got a lot of things right, tends to make Dubai look like it’s been modern for ages. So Dubai is often expected – perhaps unfairly – to be fully developed immediately in every way.

Most people who haven’t gone through rapid development don’t understand that not everything comes together. A lot of people forget that, as impressive as Dubai’s vision is, Sheikh Mohammed is only one lifetime, and Dubai has had its breakneck run for only a generation.

While you can skip ahead with things like engineering and technology, architecture and even arts, some ‘people things’ only change with successive generations. There is a limit to how fast people and culture can change. We all carry worldviews from childhood, and while they can be modified as we learn and grow, it takes another childhood to carry a new worldview as default.

This is, on balance, a good thing. Like software updates, not every paradigm change is totally bug-free. You want the option to roll back an update and tweak it. Considering my own country still struggles with feudal culture despite having modernised before Dubai, I will not judge the progress of another too harshly.

After all, we each have to find our different roles in this age of restorations.

So it’s better to learn from the vision of others, and help correct each other’s buggy updates.

And then humanity can keep moving forward, for quite a bit longer.

Carbon offset information to Dubai

A return flight between Kuala Lumpur and Dubai produces carbon emissions of approximately 2,518 lbs CO2e. It costs about $20 to offset this. 

Would you visit Alif & Terra Pavilions? Save this article for your next trip to Dubai!