Groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai

Construction work of the Danish EXPO pavilion in Shanghai has officially been started. On Friday 15 May, the ground-breaking ceremony took place, and the caterpillar machines are now moving in.

On Friday 15 May, a ceremony was held at the giant EXPO area in Shanghai to officially initiate the construction of the Danish pavilion. The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by Ms Susanne Hyldelund, Denmark’s Consul General in Shanghai, Mr Zhang Yunjie from the EXPO 2010 Shanghai organisation and Mr John Hansen, Project Director of Denmark’s EXPO Secretariat.

In his speech, John Hansen said that many Chinese may not be quite familiar with Denmark, due to the modest size of the country.

“But everyone knows Hans Christian Andersen and the fairytale of the Little Mermaid. Therefore we hope that the world-famous statue of the Mermaid will be one of the ‘EXPO stars’ when she arrives from Copenhagen next April,” he said.

The ground-breaking event marks the ending of several months of spatial planning by the architects and engineers involved in the Danish EXPO project. The topping-out ceremony is planned for Wednesday 16 September this year.