Reusable pavilion with subtle vision of a high-tech modernist Ireland

Any takers for a homeless, £3.5 million state-of-the-art public building that can move anywhere? By this time next year, movers will be preparing to return the 14,000 sq ft Irish Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany, back to Ireland, where its final destination has yet to be decided.

Officials are still discussing what sort of mechanism will be used to decide on the building's future use, but some form of public invitation to submit proposals is likely, said Fiach MacConghail, cultural director of Expo 2000, Ireland, under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Meanwhile, it appears that the pavilion may be set, as its creators intended, to confound certain expectations.

An Expo 2000 brochure produced recently in Hanover, which anticipates an Irish pavilion with the ubiquitous bar, Riverdance-type performers and images of rolling hills, mistakenly encapsulates many of the stereotypes the design team for the building have set out to avoid.

What visitors to the pavilion next June will actually get is a high-tech, determinedly modernist and technology-oriented version of Ireland - part of a new orthodoxy in this country, perhaps, but one less commonly perceived abroad.

History, landscape and culture will be central to the display inside the structure by architects Murray O Laoire, but they'll be presented through the distancing filters of abstraction and computer technology.

"It's a building that's designed to be subtle, and to make people think," said project architect Bernard Gilna.

The theme of Expo 2000, which starts on June 1st next year, is Humankind, Nature, Technology. Sustainability is a strong subtheme and influenced the decision to make the building, which will incorporate a bedded outside reed pond, reusable in Ireland.

The ubiquitous stone wall, symbol of man's imprint on the Irish landscape, is represented in the pavilion by two tall walls that hold the building together. A 12-metre high "rough" wall of natural stone is held together by wire netting. By contrast, a parallel nine metres high wall of Kilkenny limestone is highly polished. The walls are suggestive of various Irish dualities such as rough-smooth/old-new/west and east, says Mr Gilna. He is part of the Duil (elements) consortium, including designer Orna Hanly, which is working on the overall plan for the building.

Inside the pavilion's angular exterior, visitors will go on a spiral journey, suggestive of elements of Celtic design and architecture. The trip will take them from prehistory to the present through a series of spaces that will fuse traditional museum display, commissioned art work, interactive computer presentations and "sensory effects" via touch screens and a "sensory wall".

At the top of the first ramp, a large glazed panel representing the sky will introduce a computer area where systems will be set up for visiting children to communicate with their counterparts in selected parts of Ireland.

The displays, according to the architects and designers, will be designed to highlight the richness of Irish culture and the success of the country's recent economic performance.

Traditional stereotypes of Ireland are intended to be "diffused" by the manner in which the pavilion will stress qualities that make Ireland an attractive place to visit and do business. The old Irish cliche and onetime trump card, our "friendly people" makes way in 2000 for new national virtues such as "resources, adaptability, creativity and accessibility".

The organisers of Expo 2000 expect that the event, from June 1st to October 31st, will attract around 40 million visitors.

The Irish Expo 2000 Web site is at www.expo2000.ie