Urso Chappell’s ExpoMuseum Blog: The 1982 World's Fair

16 May 2007

The 1982 World's Fair

One of the reasons I've created this blog separate from the main ExpoMuseum web site was so that I could talk about my personal experiences at the six world's fairs I've been to so far.

My first world's fair was the 1982 World's Fair, the Knoxville International Energy Exposition. This month parks the 25th anniversary of its opening and there's been some media attention in Knoxville surrounding the anniversary.

I was 15 years old and living in suburban Atlanta, just about a 3-hour drive from the site. Unfortunately, I only got to see it for a day and a half, but from that point, I knew I was hooked and I saw the potential for a world's fair: a truly experimental city-within-a-city to try out new forms of architecture, design, communication, and just plain fun.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kind of off the subject of Knoxville but can anyone find published photos of pavilion designs for Expo 2010?

Anonymous said...

Way off the subject, New YORK needs to hold a worlds fair in 2014 independent of the BIE,it has been 43 years since the opening of the 1964 worlds fair, USA has not had a real large fair since. I think after the success of the 2010 expo in CHINA you will see a real grass root movement in the USA to hold another large fair, if done right by the USA it sure can send alot of good will towards other parts of the world !!

Urso Chappell said...

Expo 2010 Pavilions

So far, I've only seen preliminary images for Holland and Peru:

Holland (web site):
http://www.rijksbouwmeester.nl/english/news/news_johnkormeling.html

Peru (video on YouTube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hzLF-FUlts

Urso Chappell said...

Future US World's Fairs

I think the best tact for the US is to get back into the BIE and bid for 2017/2018 or 2020, the next two slots that are open.

I have info about both slots at:
http://www.ExpoMuseum.com/2017-2018/
http://www.ExpoMuseum.com/2020/

Anonymous said...

Can't get the link to the Netherlands pavilion to work but the Peruvian pavilion looks interesting

Jim Brady III said...

I was there in 1982 with my Grandmother and uncle. Sadly I don't remember much of it, but I've been collecting memorabilia from it ever since.