World Fair is the generic term to indicate large Exposition S held since the middle of the 19th century. The organizing organization is today the International office of the exposures (BIE).

Origins

The World Fairs were created in 1844 to present the industrial achievements of the various nations. They represented the technological and industrial window participants, testifying to progress during the Industrial revolution.

At the origin, each country had a reserved space in a central house. Starting from 1867, national houses made their appearance. In theory, they were allotted only if there were things to present that the central house could not accommodate. They were not long in spreading, the exposing nations building typical houses architecture of their countries.

The competition was omnipresent in the World Fairs, and of the contests allowed more deserving to obtain Médaille S profiting from a certain prestige.

Many architectural achievements built at the time of World Fairs became thereafter symbols of the cities which sheltered them: the Eiffel Tower with Paris, the Atomium with Brussels, the Space Needle with Seattle, the Biosphere with Montreal.

Lastly, the behavior of the World Fairs was always the occasion to set up projects of town planning: Construction of the Subway of Paris in 1900 or that of Montreal in 1967, extension of the Subway of Lisbon in 1998…

List exposures

19th century

20th century

Before 1940

After 1945

21e century

  • 2005 - Aichi (Japan) - Expo 2005, international exhibition, the wisdom of nature .
  • 2008 - Saragossa (Spain) - Expo 2008, international exhibition, water and sustainable development .
  • 2010 - Shanghai (China) - Expo 2010, World Fair, a better city, a better life .
  • 2012 - Yeosu (South Korea) - Expo 2012, international exhibition, For coasts and oceans alive .
  • 2015 - Izmir (Turkey) or Milan (Italy), World Fair. The choice of the city will be made on March 31st 2008.
  • 2020 - the candidate of the UMP opposition to the municipal elections of Paris of 2008, Francoise de Panafieu, registered the candidature of Paris for the exposure of 2020 to her program. But considering the influence of 200 hectares necessary for such an event, this project could not undoubtedly be made that within the framework of the Grand Paris. The files must be deposited before 2011.

Anecdotes

  • It is at the time of the World Fair of 1867, which took place in Paris, that the first water-bus made their entry in the capital. Following a contest launched by the organizers of the exposure, the naval manufacturer Lyons Michel Félizat (associate with other Lyoneses) gained the price and conveyed by the the Saone, the Canal of Burgundy, the Yonne and the the Seine, about thirty specimens of his boats with passengers built in his workshops established in the district of the Fly (from where their name), in the south of Lyon (on the side of Gerland).
  • With the international exhibition of 1937 in France, the houses German and Soviet, located face to face, is opposed symbolically. Indeed, the CGT sabotaged the preparation of the Exposure, which should have been the response of the Popular front to the Olympic Games of Berlin: the workmen of CGT struck of the construction of all the houses… others that of the Soviet Union, under the ironic glances of the German workmen (of the single trade union Nazi), who them drew up without delay the monumental house of their country.
  • Certaines exposures sometimes presented aberrations. For example, in 1867 a temple précolombien certified certified copy had a room covered with Hiéroglyphe S!

See too

Random links:1992 with the cinema | Étinehem | Psilidae | Vaka | Oscars of the cinema 1965