This is wild:

For the 2010 Shanghai Expo, the Korean architectural firm Mass Studies has created a phenomenal layering of signs and symbols that transforms the Korean pavilion into first, a curious and bewildering puzzle, then a tasteless, junky theme park and finally an impressively well-conceived interactive, multidimensional space.

The rendering for the Korean pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. Image: designboom.com

We think Mass Studies is exemplary of the New Architecture – It not only engages in it, but actively critiques it. They critically investigate architecture in the context of mass production, intensely over-populated urban conditions, and other emergent cultural niches that define contemporary society.

Image: designboom.com

Image: designboom.com

According to their website – HERE – “For each architectural project, which exists across a wide range of scales, Mass Studies explores issues such as spatial systems/matrixes, building materials/techniques, and typological divergences to foster a vision that allows the discovery of new socio/cultural potential.”

It’s architecture that considers signs, mapping and language in its design concept.

Sign as Space + Space as Sign = Architecture as Art

Read more and see more images on Designboom, HERE