Corn-focused Starting from its shape, the Mexican pavilion celebrates this essential food for their culture

At first glance, guessing what inspired the Mexican pavilion could not be easy. You need to move a little backwards, to understand that there are leaves embracing the main facade, leaves from a huge cob. Corn is indeed one of the fundamental elements in Mexico’s presence at Expo Milano 2015, but most of all it is the symbol par excellence of the country’s gastronomic culture.

Indeed Mexico is the place of origin of this essential food, which for the Maya civilization represented not just a sacred ingredient but a divinity too. Man himself, according to their religion, is a ball of water and corn shaped by the gods. Even today it is the basic ingredient in a cuisine that, in 2010, was included in Unesco’s Immaterial Cultural Heritage List.

This inspiration was caught by architect Francisco Lòpez Guerra, who designed the pavilion spread over five levels connected by flights of stairs, following a system inspired by the ancient terraced fields created during the Netzahualcoyotl empire.