Looking for a second time at the

Looking for a second time at the forewords of the organizers and the supporters of such big events as the Expositions Universelles, we see the contemporary Expos from a bit more of a distance. If economics, politics and the market are the main engines of the machine which implements the Expos, we cannot then ignore that the secondary engines also have their role. Art, architecture, local traditions, heritage, entertainment, beliefs, sports or simply a demand for jet-setter destinations are all integral parts of the Expos: these build up a public (and universal) image of the event and the nation which hosts it. They confer splendor and opulence; they are the first thing people see and admire in the exhibition; they provide the features the people are stunned by and—it seems likely the images the visitors will keep in their memories for all their lives. But it free copy would be quite naïve to think of these as the main reasons for the Expos.
Famous examples from the past Some significant buildings a remarkable heritage from past Expos are worth remembering, and they can offer more clues in terms of collocating the Shanghai Expo both in its history and our present time. As mentioned, the first great world exhibition was the one held in London in 1851. English architect Joseph Paxton conceived a 26-ac exposition space which was to attract about six million people and show novelties like the Colt revolver, the telegraph, and false teeth. What remains of the Great Exhibition building (564m long with an interior height of 33m) is images in reproductions hung in the houses of people in the most remote corners of the world. The Crystal Palace – as it was dubbed by Punch Magazine – became during the years afterwards a real prototype: several imitations arose in Europe and the United States in cities such as Amsterdam, New York, Dublin and Munich. The first truly international Expo reflected an apotheosis of a new world featuring a sense of profound scientific and technological change. The financial balance was definitely positive and Prince Albert used the Expo\'s profits in the creation of the new Albert & Victoria Museum. Five years later the Exposition Universelle des Produits de l\'Industrie was held in Paris at Champ de Mars. A rectangular area (165ac) was set aside to host a large oval building with seven concentrically arranged halls, each dedicated to a particular type of product to be presented. The building could have been experienced either along the rings so as to see a specific category as presented by various countries or moving in and out of the rings so as to see what a single nation had to offer. In 1873 pseudopodia was Vienna\'s turn to host the world exposition. The chosen building—in the exhibition area of the city park of Prater (a former royal hunting refuge) was built in a pompous neo-Renaissance style, although with some tweaks. A quite predictable main rectangular shape was this time sectioned off by seventeen transepts, and one 914-m corridor was set symmetrically along the longitude. At the center of the rectangular floor plan a giant wrought-iron and glass dome was placed: the Rotunda, the largest structure ever built without interposed buttresses. The building was covered both outside and inside by neo-Renaissance ornamentation. During the Exposition Universelle de Paris of 1878 several new technological novelties were presented. The ice machine, the lift and the telephone are just a few examples, but the main attraction was electric lighting. The exposition site was divided by the Champ de Mars (as in the past) at the suggestion of Viollet-le-Duc, and on the opposite bank of the Seine, le Trocadéro. The 346- by 705-m building was called the Palais de l\'Industrie. Its shape easily recalls the previous expo building in Philadelphia from two years before. Unlike that structure, though, the French one was built with a basement level both for dealing with the uneven surface of the Champ de Mars and to allow an ingenious system of ventilation pipes inside. Quite remarkable for its daring structure was the Galerie de Machines, conceived by the engineer Henri de Dion.