Estonia to scrap EXPO 2000 pavilion

  • 2001-02-22
  • BNS
TALLINN - The Estonian pavilion at EXPO 2000 in Hanover is to be scrapped, because the exibit's organizing committee has failed to reach an agreement on its sale with potential buyers.

Five companies that were interested in buying the pavilion backed out one after the other, said Aili Ohlau, a spokesperson for the organizing committee.

The companies that had considered the purchase were the Dortmund-based sculpture gallery Homeo Artic, Hanover's city government, the Stuttgart real estate company SEPA, the Bremen-based Conrad Hydrokulturen-Vertriebsgesellschaft, and the company Barbarino from Munich.

The Hanover city government has given the Estonians until March to take the structure apart.

Offers by construction companies have put the price of dismantling and disposing of the pavilion at between three and six million kroons ($175,000-$350,000).

The vice chairman of the Estonian exhibition committee, Teet Kurs, said that while buyers had found the pavilion extremely attractive, they were unable to find the money needed to re-erect it in another location. The Estonian pavilion, which is fondly remembered for its trademark field of fir trees planted in suspended red cone-shaped vessels at roof level, so that they resembled carrots dangling from the ceiling, ranked among the 10 most visited pavilions by the 173 nations and organizations at EXPO 2000.

Reports say that among those pavilions looking for new owners, so far only the Netherlands pavilion at EXPO has found one.Now that the EXPO party is over, the Estonian pavilion unhappily follows the Latvian, Lithuanian, Italian and Hungarian pavilions - all located close to the Estonian pavilion - to the scrap yard.