Inside the Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Expo 2025: Stories Rooted in Connection

As the world converges on Japan for Expo 2025 Osaka, SEGD is proud to recognize the member firms shaping this global moment through immersive storytelling, bold architecture, and place-based experience design.

  1. Exterior view of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Pavilion, with its distinctive geometric stone façade designed by Foster + Partners. Image courtesy Journey

At Expo 2025 Osaka, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Pavilion is more than an architectural landmark—it’s a living cultural platform where performance, art, and immersive storytelling unfold in real time. Designed by Foster + Partners with content and story-led experience design by Journey, through its studios 59 and Squint/Opera, the pavilion invites visitors to experience Saudi Arabia’s warmth, creativity, and innovation through a seamless blend of physical spaces, live programming, and digital media.

From the outset, the brief was unlike a typical Expo commission: embed storytelling into the fabric of the building, not layer it on afterwards. Media design, live performance, spatial planning, and architectural form were developed as one integrated vision. The goal was not simply to show Saudi Arabia’s culture, but to allow visitors to participate in it, fostering moments of connection between strangers through shared experiences.

  1. Visitors enter beneath the pavilion’s angular stone volumes, patterned with interlocking geometric panels inspired by Saudi landscapes

  2. The pavilion’s retail space offers a curated selection of Saudi-made goods, from textiles and books to artisanal crafts, extending the cultural experience beyond the exhibits.

Designing a Story You Can Step Into

The collaboration began in 2023, when Journey studio 59 and Foster + Partners won the design competition. Rather than treat architecture and media as separate disciplines, the team—joined by Squint/Opera—worked as one, co-developing everything from the masterplan and stage mechanics to the lighting, AV systems, and content strategy. This integration ensured that every surface, sound, and sightline could serve the pavilion’s central narrative: Saudi Arabia as a place of creativity, dialogue, and vision for the future.

Throughout the design process, the teams asked: What if the pavilion could feel alive? What if the cultural exchange happened not only between visitors and the exhibits, but between visitors themselves? The result is a building that changes throughout the day, constantly generating new content, performances, and conversations.

  1. The Saudi Courtyard transforms after dark, with projection-mapped imagery spilling across its 17-meter-high walls.

  2. A live performance in the courtyard invites audiences into Saudi Arabia’s cultural traditions.

The Saudi Courtyard

At the center lies the Saudi Courtyard, a space that reflects the country’s tradition of hospitality. By day, it’s a place of calm and conversation; by night, it transforms into a stage for sound-and-light shows projected on 17-meter-high walls. The content—music, visuals, and stories—is created in real time in the pavilion’s adjacent studios, meaning no two evenings are ever the same.

Visitors don’t just watch these performances—they are part of the collective energy, sharing the space with others from around the world, connected by what’s unfolding in front of them.

  1. Inside the Visual Arts Studio, large-format digital displays showcase contemporary Saudi artists alongside the creative process in real time.

  2. Inside the Music Studio, visitors engage with interactive displays while projection-mapped walls and live-recorded performances immerse them in Saudi Arabia’s contemporary soundscape.

Creativity in Action

Two studios—dedicated to visual art and music—invite visitors into the creative process itself.

Visual Arts Studio – Large-scale works take shape before visitors’ eyes. Artists work on pitched display walls while live cameras, mirrors, and projection surfaces give audiences a close view of every detail. Integrated audio carries the artist’s voice across the space, transforming process into performance.

Music Studio – Part rehearsal space, part recording booth, part live venue, this studio enables musicians to compose and perform for an in-person audience. Projection-mapped walls and integrated video capture create an immediate connection between performers and visitors, while commissioned artworks rotate in the background—making each session a layered sensory event.

These studios are not behind glass; they’re active, open, and accessible, reinforcing the pavilion’s message that culture grows through openness and exchange.

The Visitor Journey

Leaving the studios, visitors embark on a thematic progression through four immersive galleries:

Evolving Cities – A cinematic journey from sunrise to nightfall explores Saudi Arabia’s urban evolution—from ancient desert towns to future megaprojects—through immersive media, stone textures, and animated carvings.

Sustainable Seas – This oceanic gallery blends immersive film, living mangroves, and a 3D-printed coral wall to highlight Saudi Arabia’s commitment to marine conservation and environmental innovation.

Unlimited Human Potential – Celebrating the country’s dynamic role in international sports, this gallery surrounds visitors with the sights and sounds of Saudi athletic achievement, designed to inspire ambition and pride.

Pinnacle of Innovation – A forward-looking showcase of technologies, architectural visions, and global initiatives, including NEOM, presented through interactive objects and expansive multimedia storytelling.

  1. Looking upward in the courtyard, projection-mapped imagery immerses visitors in a changing palette of color and motion.

Technology as an Invisible Facilitator

Panoramic projection surfaces, tactile interactives, synchronized lighting, and a unified sound environment guide visitors through each transition, but technology never dominates.

The physical galleries were created with multidimensional design inextricably linked, resulting in a truly holistic approach where moving image, tactile materials, and spatial elements merge into a singular, immersive experience.
Alice Britton, Executive Director, Journey

The design’s success lies in its restraint—technology is not the headline, but the quiet enabler of cultural exchange.

  1. A tactile installation invites hands-on exploration of intricate patterns rooted in Saudi heritage.

Culture in Real Time

By embedding live creation and performance into the pavilion’s daily life, the design ensures that culture is not a static display but an evolving conversation. Visitors leave not only with an understanding of Saudi Arabia’s heritage and ambitions but also with memories of being part of something unrepeatable—a shared experience made in the moment.

When we innovate, when we do something special, the world becomes better. From time to time when I see footage that is able to capture that, I’m extremely excited.
Dr. Ghazi Faisal Binzagr, Ambassador to Japan, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Named by Dezeen as one of the Top 10 Stand-Out Pavilions at Expo 2025 Osaka, the project has already welcomed over one million visitors in its first two months. With 28 million expected before the Expo closes, the pavilion is poised to be one of the event’s most dynamic cultural destinations—proving that the most powerful nation-branding happens when architecture, performance, and human connection are designed as one.

Expo 2025 Osaka Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Pavilion, video courtesy of Journey
Project Credits
  • Architect: Foster + Partners
  • Digital and visitor experience design: Squint/Opera, a Journey studio
  • Performance and visitor experience design: 59, a Journey studio
  • Other collaborators: Done + Dusted, Charcoalblue, Insignia, Tait, Coda to Coda

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