Expo 67

Expo 67 poster, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa (Accession No. 1990-552-1)

Man and His World redirects here - for the 1990 animated documentary feature film by Bruno Bozzetto, see Man and His World.The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, or simply Expo 67 was a World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1967 to coincide with the Canadian Centennial that year. Expo 67 was originally going to be held in Moscow, to help the Soviet Union celebrate the 50th anniversary of its revolution. When the Soviet Union changed its mind in 1962, Montreal took on the organization of the exposition.

Overview

The main part of the fair was held on Saint Helen's Island and Ile Notre-Dame, the latter an artificial island built from earth excavated for the Montreal metro system, first opened in 1966. Expo 67 opened on April 28, 1967 and featured 90 pavilions for nations, corporations and industries including the U.S. pavilion, a geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller. Expo 67 also featured the Habitat 67 housing complex designed by architect Moshe Safdie, which is still occupied. The Golden Centennaires also performed at expo.

A notable feature of Expo 67 was the World Festival of Entertainment, featuring opera, ballet and theatre companies, alongside orchestras, jazz groups, famous Canadian pop musicians and other cultural attractions.

The Expo was one of the most successful World's Fairs and is still regarded fondly by Canadians. Some even consider it to be one of the biggest events of the 20th century. 1967 is often referred to as "the last good year" before economic decline, Quebec sovereigntism (seen as negative from a federalist viewpoint), and political apathy became common. Despite this there were problems: FLQ terrorists were active at the time and death threats were issued. American President Lyndon B. Johnson's visit became a focus of anti-war protesters.

More than 50 million visitors (50,306,648) attended Expo 67 at a time when Canada's population was only 20 million, setting a record for World Fair attendance that still stands. The fair was visited by many of the most notable people of the day including Queen Elizabeth II, Lyndon Johnson, Princess Grace, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Charles de Gaulle, who created an international controversy when he shouted "Vive le Québec libre!" ("Long Live Free Quebec") from the balcony of Montreal city hall on July 24 (this slogan being well known as the rallying cry of the Quebec independentists).

Montreal's former baseball team, the Expos, was named after the event.

Crowds in front of the Quebec pavilion.

After 1967, the site struggled on for years as a standing collection of international pavilions known as "Man and His World." However, as attendance declined, the physical condition of the site deteriorated, and less and less of it was open to the public. In 1975 the Île Notre-Dame section of the site was completely rebuilt around the new rowing basin for Montreal's 1976 Summer Olympics. Space for the basin, the boathouses, the changing rooms and other buildings was obtained by demolishing many of the former pavilions and cutting in half the area taken by the artificial lake and the canals. In 1976, a fire destroyed the acrylic outer skin of Buckminster Fuller's dome. With the site falling into disrepair it began to resemble ruins of a futuristic city. In the late 70s, scenes for Robert Altman's post-apocalyptic ice age Quintet (film) were shot on site, as was an episode of Battlestar Galactica, which portrayed it as the ruins of a city left behind after a biological attack. Some of the footage showing the United Kingdom pavilion was reused in Buck Rogers. The remaining original exhibits of the site closed for good in 1982.

Today, the site houses the Montreal Casino (in the former pavilions of France and Quebec), the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve race track, an amusement park called La Ronde, and many acres of parkland and cycle paths on Ile Saint-Helene and the western tip of Ile Notre-Dame. The old US pavilion still stands, currently housing a science museum on the theme of water (the Biosphère). On Ile Notre-Dame the Olympic basin is used by many rowing clubs of the area. In summer, an artificial beach, recently built on the shore of the remaining artificial lake, has been very popular. In previous years the site has been used for a number of events such as an international botanical festival, Les floralies. The young trees and shrubs planted for Expo 67 are now mature. The plants introduced during the botanical events have prospered also. In the warmest weeks of the summer the two islands are cool, leafy havens compared to the overheated city. In the winter, brave Montrealers skate on the frozen Olympic basin of Île Notre-Dame, whipped by the glacial winds coming from the Saint Lawrence River.

Facts and Figures

*All figures in 1967 values and in Canadian funds:
** Cost: $431,904,683
** Revenue: $221,239,872
today worth $1.768 billion
** Deficit: $210,664,811
** Chief Architect: M. Edouard Fiset
*Participating Countries:
** Africa: Algeria, Cameroun, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Mauritius, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, and Upper Volta
** Asia: Burma, Ceylon, China (Taiwan), Korea, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Thailand and the United Arab Republic
** Australia
** Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the USSR, and Yugoslavia
** Latin America: Barbados, Cuba, Grenade, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela
** North America: Canada, Mexico, and the United States

Pavilions

National Pavilions

* Canada
* Cuba
* Czechoslovakia
* France
* Greece
* India
* Iran
* Israel
* Italy
* West Germany (FRG) (designed by Frei Otto)
* Africa Place
* United Kingdom
* Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
* United States of America (USA)

Regional Pavilions

* Ontario
* Quebec
* Atlantic Provinces
* Western Provinces
* Indians of Canada

Thematic Pavilions

* Man and His World
* Man the Producer
* Man and the Arctic
* Man and the Ocean

Industrial Pavilions

* Alcan
* Bell Canada
* Canadian Pulp and Paper Industry
* Air Canada

Legacy

The only buildings remaining in use on the Expo grounds are the Buckminister Fuller dome (now operating as a museum called Biosphère) and the Habitat '67 residences. Also, the French and Quebec pavillions are now part of the Montreal Casino. The Jamaican Pavillion is still standing, and the Place des Nations is also. There are several other remains, such as lamposts and landscaping.

The band They Might Be Giants referenced Expo '67 in their song Purple Toupee.

Miscellaneous

On opening day, there was considerable comment on the uniform of the hostesses from the UK Pavilion. The dresses had been designed to the then new minidress style, which had been introduced in the previous year by Mary Quant. By the middle of the summer, nearly every other pavilion had raised the hem of the uniforms of their hostesses. Canadian women were quick to take to the liberated style of the mini skirt.

With the closure of Expo 67, the exhibition site on Saint Helen's Island was used during the next and several following years as an attraction called "Man & His World" (which was the sub-title of Expo 67). The Montreal Metro (Underground railway) was opened in time for Expo 67, and included a station on St Helen's island to give public transport to the exhibition. This resulted in Montrealers having easy access to the park on the island after all of the other attractions had closed.

Absent countries included The People's Republic of China, Spain, South Africa, and many countries of South America.

External links

* Expo 67 - A Virtual Experience, from the website of Library and Archives Canada
* Expo 67 postcard gallery
* CBC Digital Archives - Expo 67: Montreal Welcomes the World
* Expo 67 in photos - www.worldsfairphotos.com

Expo 67: Encyclopedia BETA

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