Back to Japan Expo 2025 will build on Osaka’s world’s fair legacy by James Ogul
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n March 31, 2022, Expo 2020 Dubai will close, having completed its six-month run. Expo 2020 Dubai (delayed by the pandemic, the event retained its original “2020” name) was the first world’s fair hosted in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It was a large-scale World Expo, registered by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). The larger, six-month world’s fairs occur every five years, and the next is currently taking shape in Osaka, Japan. Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai will run from April 13 to October 13. Its theme is “Designing Future Society for Our Lives.” Organizers have projected some 28 million visits. More details of Expo 2025 appear below — but first, a little history. Osaka has a distinguished record as a world-class event host, having previously hosted a major world’s fair in 1970 with a considerable legacy, as well as the 1990 International Garden and Greenery Exhibition, which although not officially a world’s fair had the elements of one. Here is a look at both.
Osaka Expo 70: Progress and harmony From March-September 1970, Osaka presented the first world expo hosted in Japan and Asia. Under the theme “Progress and Harmony for Mankind,” there were 77 participating countries and more than 64 million visits, setting an expo attendance record that stood for four decades. The record was finally broken by Shanghai Expo 2010 which received some 73 million visits. The Osaka ’70 expo grounds had a central Symbol Zone with moving walkways extending out to 116 international and
The Tower of the Sun from Expo ’70. Photo courtesy of Osaka Prefecture Japan World Exposition Memorial Park Office.
corporate pavilions. Presiding over Harmony Plaza was the centerpiece of the Expo, the 230-foot-tall Tower of the Sun, designed by Tarō Okamoto. The Tower was to be torn down after the exposition, but was saved by a preservation campaign and today lives as the Tower of the Sun Museum in the Expo ’70 Commemorative Park, open to the public on the original site of the fair. The structure was officially registered as Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2020 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Expo. In an article published on the BIE website, Shinya Hashizume noted, “The Expo 1970 site was designed to play the role of a testing ground for ambitious social experiments. A Symbol Zone, one kilometer long and 150 meters wide, was constructed in the center of the site and filled with structures including the Festival Plaza, the Tower of the Sun, the Theme Pavilion, and the Expo Tower. Moving walkways extended in all four directions from this zone. Much was made of the country pavilions such as that of the United States, which featured the actual lunar module and rocks brought back from the moon, and the Soviet Union, which boasted displays of Lenin and the Soyuz spacecraft. Also well-received were productions such as the Netherlands pavilion’s multiple image displays and the Joint Scandinavian pavilion’s slide shows, which were projected onto blank papers with visitors’ fingertips. Meanwhile, the corporate pavilions competed with
A rendering of the Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai site. Photo courtesy of Sou Fujimoto Architects.
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