The guide to Expo 2015 for design lovers. If we say SoHo, everyone thinks of a specific area of Manhattan (or London, if you are British). However, in New York City, SoHo stands for South of Houston Street. Here we are at Expo 2015; we are not as clever as in New York, so we have no SoDe (South of Decumanus). That said, if we organized names like in New York (NoLIta, North of Little Italy; NoMad, North of Madison Square Park, etc.), we would get SoDe. The south side of the matter. Piero Ciampi would have said: “[the roaring south](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F08NeU_97qY)”. This area was curated by the Social Media Team Expo 2015. All photos by Beatrice Bianchetti and Anna Chiara Maggiolini.
The only pre-existing building on the exhibition site.
Entering the Afghanistan Pavilion, located in the Spices Cluster, the feeling is that of entering a dish of saffron risotto (but without the rice). Very intense smell and aroma, very hot, contrasted and complemented by the cool colours of the exhibition. The protagonist of this space dedicated to the very precious (and very expensive) spice is Mr. Mohammed. Mohammed is an elderly Afghan gentleman, full of wrinkles and mild-mannered. He catches our eyes with his gaze and shares with everyone (for hours and hours) wonderful stories and events (in a language that no visitor can understand). It is an absolute spectacle: total empathy using the body and sounds of a distant and exotic language. Every time we pass by there, we look in and he is always there, sitting on a little chair to enchant dozens of spectators with imaginative explanations and stories. We thought it was a pavilion, but it is a theatre. Of very high quality. When Expo becomes people, we get goosebumps from the excitement!
