-Region showcases its history, nature, innovation at Expo- 

OSAKA, Sept. 30, 2025/ANSA=Kyodo JBN/ --

Piedmont’s week as a protagonist of the Italy Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka features among its highlights the region’s cultural heritage and landscapes recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The region has offered the Japanese public an insight into its history, nature and innovations with the event ‘Piedmont shares its story at Expo Osaka: a Heritage of Humanity – a journey across the UNESCO sites’.

The meeting highlighted the variety of a territory that boasts 16 UNESCO sites, as recalled by Marina Chiarelli, the Region’s Culture, Equal Opportunities and Youth Policies Councillor.

“We focused on the cultural offerings of Piedmont, from the wine-growing landscapes of Langhe, Roero and Monferrato to truffle hunting, from Via Francigena to the Royal Residences of the House of Savoy, without forgetting Sacri Monti (Sacred Mountains), the lakes and stilts and the (National) Museum of Cinema.

“It is a tale uniting roots and future, identity and innovation”, explained Chiarelli.

Great attention was devoted to the Royal Residences of the House of Savoy, presented by the director of the Consortium Chiara Teolato.

“Expo is an extraordinary occasion to promote a system of 16 residences that tells the story of Piedmont and offers diverse experiences”, she explained, noting that the “heritage is sometimes little-known” and can “boost tourism and the appeal of our region”.

A voice of the territory also reached Expo remotely with Giovanna Quaglia, the president of the Association for the heritage of the wine-growing landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato.

“We have celebrated 10 years since the UNESCO recognition”, which has “awarded the secular relationship between mankind and nature”, she said.

Quaglia noted how “our vineyards speak about the labour of generations” and are “today at the centre of a management plan investing in innovation, training and safeguard, with the objective of passing on a universal heritage to new generations”.

The mosaic is completed by Ivrea, a UNESCO ‘industrial city of the 20th century’ entrusted to site manager Filippo Ghisi.

The city is also well-known for one of Italy’s historic brands, Olivetti, which manufactured typewriters, mechanical calculators and computers.

“It wasn’t only a factory but an idea of community, of work at the service of the development of people – buildings and values which UNESCO recognized in 2018 and which we feel are in line today with Expo’s theme, a Vision of Future”, stressed Ghisi.

And Japan joined the cultural dialogue.

Hiroko Sekine, a professor at Sojo University, recalled the long history of Piedmont’s Sacri Monti (Sacred Mountains), groups of chapels and other architectural features, as an expression of the Counter-Reformation and a symbol of popular faith, while Jin Matsushima, curator of Mt. Fuji World Heritage Centre, highlighted the universal meaning of holy landscapes: “In eastern Asia, mountains represent the universe; we find the same spirit in the Sacred Mountains, where nature and spirituality are intertwined”.

With this event, Piedmont has strengthened in Osaka the connection between its excellence and the international community, showing how cultural heritage and landscapes can become factors of attraction, growth and dialogue between cultures."

Source: General Commissioner’s Office of Italy for Expo 2025 Osaka