The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 14: Urso's Expo 2010, part 2

In episode 14, I continue my tour of Expo 2010 with the pavilions of Coca-Cola, Cisco, the World Expo Museum, the Pavilion of Footprint, South Korea Corporate, Information and Communications, the Urban Best Practices Area, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lichtenstein, Armenia, Macedonia, Albania, Malta, Azerbaijan, San Marino, Cyprus, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Latvia, and Estonia.

ExpoMuseum's photos on Flickr:
Coca-Cola Pavilion Pavilion
Cisco Pavilion
World Expo Museum
Pavilion of Footprint
South Korea Corporate Pavilion
Information and Communication Pavilion
Urban Best Practices Area
Belarus Pavilion
Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion
Liechtenstein Pavilion
Armenia Pavilion
Macedonia Pavilion
Albania Pavilion
Malta Pavilion
Azerbaijan Pavilion
San Marino Pavilion
Cyprus Pavilion
Sweden Pavilion
Iceland Pavilion
Denmark Pavilion
Latvia Pavilion
Estonia Pavilion

ShanghaiWorldsFair.com

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Switzerland's Chair Lift Ride at Expo 2010

The Switzerland Pavilion features a chair lift ride that spirals up the center of the pavilion up to a rooftop Swiss landscape. It affords great views of the Expo site and Shanghai skyline.

Expo 2010's Latvia Pavilion

Here's some video from the Latvia Pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

The performers were treated like rock stars by the audience as everyone jockeyed for position to get themselves photographed with them afterwards.

The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 12: Urso's Expo 2010, Day 1

In episode 12, Urso talks about his first day on the Expo 2010 site.

ExpoMuseum's photos on Flickr:
North Korea Pavilion
Expos x Expos
Timor-Leste Pavilion
Maldives Pavilion
Bangladesh Pavilion
Kyrgyzstan Pavilion
United Arab Emirates Pavilion
Israel Pavilion
Sri Lanka Pavilion
Pacific Islands Pavilion
Red Cross Red Crescent Pavilion
United Nations Pavilion
Australia Pavilion
Singapore Pavilion
Philippines Pavilion
Portugal Pavilion
Slovakia Pavilion
Czech Republic Pavilion
Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion
Belarus Pavilion
Bulgaria Pavilion
Montenegro Pavilion
Georgia Pavilion
Hungary Pavilion
Ireland Pavilion
Norway Pavilion
United States Pavilion

ShanghaiWorldsFair.com

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The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 10: Expo 2010 Opens

Shanghai's Expo 2010 opened on May 1st and runs for 6 months. We join forces with the Life in Shanghai Podcast's Rob Chelseth to get news and hints for visiting the largest world's fair in history.


The World's Fair Podcast
The Life in Shanghai Podcast
ShanghaiWorldsFair.com
Expo 2010 Information from The Life in Shanghai Podcast
Official Expo 2010 Website

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The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 8: Expo Potpourri

In Episode 8 of The World's Fair Podcast, hosts John McGregor and Urso Chappell talk about various world's fair topics including Expo 2010, the fate of Seattle Center, and large motion picture formats.

Here are a few links related to our discussion:
Expo 2010 - official site
Seattle Center - Public Feedback
The Textures of Expo 2010 - Ottawa Citizen article

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Expo 2010 Construction Photos

Pascal Deseure, in Shanghai, sent us construction photos of 36 pavilions. They're now on ExpoMuseum's Flickr site.

Here are a few of them:

The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 5: Expo 2010 with Michael Darragh

Episode 5 of The World's Fair Podcast is now online and available to download.

We were honored to have Michael Darragh join us from Shanghai. We talk about Shanghai's upcoming Expo 2010 and his organization's poll measuring interest by Chinese people in the various pavilions.

Find out which country's pavilion is the most anticipated.

Here are some links related to our discussion:
World Expo Blog
World Expo Blog's Twitter
World Expo Blog on YouTube
Expo 2010
Bjarke Ingels Group - Architect of the Denmark Pavilion

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The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 3: Australia at Expo 2010

Episode 3 of The World's Fair Podcast is now online and available to download.

In episode 3, John McGregor and I talk to Pavilion Director Peter Sams and Creative Director Pete Ford of the Australia Pavilion at Expo 2010.

It's a fascinating glimpse into the upcoming Australia Pavilion as well as what it's like planning, building, and operating a successful world's fair exhibit.

You can listen to it via iTunes or through our the web site:
http://www.WorldsFairPodcast.com/

The World's Fair Podcast, Episode 2

Our next episode of The World's Fair Podcast is now available for download via iTunes and at WorldsFairPodcast.com.

In episode 2, we celebrate the new year by talking about the most anticipated pavilions at Shanghai's Expo 2010, which opens in just 4 months.

We talk about the upcoming pavilions to be hosted by Australia, the United States, Denmark, Switzerland, Nepal, South Korea, Netherlands, China, and others.

The Wonderful World of Chemistry at the 1964-'65 New York World's Fair

...from the duPont Pavilion at the 1964-'65 New York World's Fair.

It's pretty incredible: incredible lyrics, incredible choreography, incredible mixture of live performances with film projection, and the incredible use of the "E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company" as a repeated lyric.

It would be wonderful to see crazy production like this (but in Chinese) at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

Greetings from Shanghai

This trip has been pretty amazing so far. Unfortunately, it's taken me a few days to be able to access my blog in order to report.



Friday, I was honored to be the guest of the Australian Pavilion for a quick tour around the Expo 2010 site under construction and an amazing look at the Australian Pavilion under construction. It's truly amazing how much creativity and time-consuming work goes into creating a pavilion that likely been in operation for just 6 months, hosting 5 million of the 70+ million visitors expected.

I'm deeply grateful to the folks at Ogilvy PR and World Expo Blog who were able to arrange my visit, Michael Darragh and Lina Han. Our Australian Pavilion host Peter Sams, who I was delighted to find out was a reader of my site and blog, is the pavilion director and veteran of the Australian Pavilion at Expo 2005 in Aichi.

I've posted some photos from the visit at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/expomuseum/

Saturday, I played the role of a more traditional tourist and visited People's Park and the adjacent shopping areas. In People's Park, the city has an Urban Planning Museum which, right now, is mostly about their preparations for Expo 2010.

I was rather tickled to see a couple of my photos in an exhibit about the history of expo mascots. It's rather satisfying to see photos of my own world's fair memorabilia collection in a museum on the other side of the planet.

Haibao and ads for Expo 2010 blanket nearly every square foot of surface in this town that's not under construction. As I type this in my hotel room, I can hear the sounds of construction from various places in the city. As with Nagoya and Hannover, which I also visited in the year before their respective expos, the whole city is getting ready and everything seems to have the same deadline: 1 May 2010, opening day of Expo 2010.

I have plans to meet more folks that are working behind the scenes here in Shanghai. It must be thrilling to be working on all the little projects that will come together next year in the largest world's fair in history. I'm reminded of what it must have been like to work on the World's Columbian Exposition the year before: 1892. I find myself pondering what sort of anticipation there was in 1938, the year before New York's 1939-'40 New York World's Fair. In so many ways, I see parallels between Shanghai's Expo 2010 and Osaka's Expo '70. Imagine what it must have been like being a part of putting that together in 1969!

Expo 2010 United States Pavilion Construction

I received this photo this morning of the United States Pavilion under construction as of this past weekend.

On Wednesday, I travel to Shanghai to see the city and construction site in person.

Interview on A View for You, 25 August 2009

Monday, I was interviewed by Peter Camarda on A View for You. I talk about world's fairs in general, San Francisco's three world's fairs, Shanghai's plans for Expo 2010, and my winning Expo 2005 train wrap design.

Here's the interview in three parts.

Estonia at Expo 2010

As far as I can tell from an online translator, "varjatud linnad" means roughly "interurban undercurrent." That would certainly match the visuals and Expo 2010's theme.

Estonia always has great world's fair pavilions and this preview of their Expo 2010 pavilion looks to be no exception.

As a graphic designer, my favorite world's fair pavilion brochure of all time was the Estonia Pavilion's brochure at Expo 2000 in Hannover entitled "A Dozen Questions about Estonia." It was very colorful, clever, and tongue-in-cheek.

CORRECTION: I've since learned that this was only a proposal for the Estonia Pavilion and that another entry won. Still, if one of the losing entries is this interesting, we can only guess how compelling the final pavilion will be.

Expo 2010 Sweden Pavilion Groundbreaking Ceremony

For the groundbreaking of the Sweden Pavilion on 20 April, two Volvo excavators performed.

Music by Anders Rimpi and choreography by Veera Suvalo Grimberg

BRC Imagination Arts' Brad Shelton

Once again, I had the distinct honor of appearing on the Season Pass Podcast. The main guest this episode was Brad Shelton of BRC Imagination Arts. We talked about world's fairs naturally, but more specifically Shanghai's Expo 2010 and the efforts to ensure the United States has a pavilion there. We also talk about the United States' last two world's fairs in Knoxville and New Orleans and the history of expo mascots.

Here are some links related to our conversation:

Expo 2010's China Pavilion

Expo 2010's United States Pavilion (plans by Nick Winslow's group)

The BH&L Group

ExpoMuseum's 2017-2018 page

ExpoMuseum's 2020 page

ExpoMuseum's photos of Expo mascots - including 1984's Seymour, 2000's Twipsy, and 2010's Haibao

You can hear the podcast via iTunes or by visiting The Season Pass Podcast, episode 77

Expo 2010 Fake Souvenirs a Good Sign?

Today, the People's Daily (China's government paper) ran this article, entitled "Crackdown on Fake Shanghai Expo Goods."

I don't recall there ever being a problem with Expo souvenirs being counterfeited at any of the recent expositions. Of course, those countries (Portugal, Germany, Japan, and Spain) have much longer traditions of trademark protection.

Here's why I think it might be a good sign that fake Expo 2010 souvenirs are out there: We're one year and 9 days from opening day and there's already a market for Expo 2010 souvenirs.

ExpoMuseum's 2010 Shanghai page: http://www.ExpoMuseum.com/2010/

Expo 58 United States Pavilion: What's My Line

In the last year, I've become a big fan of the Game Show Network's reruns of the classic panel game show What's My Line. They've been running episodes in order and they're currently showing episodes from 1958.

The host, journalist John Charles Daly, left for two weeks to travel to Europe and mentioned to the audience he was going to see "the fair in Brussels." I thought it was interesting that he didn't feel the need to elaborate what was going on there, despite this being an era when very few Americans had the means to travel abroad.

Weeks later, when bandleader Benny Goodman visited the show, he was asked about his visit to Expo 58 and what he thought about the United States Pavilion and its exhibits. He was generally favorable about the music venue but attempted to be diplomatic in the face of some criticism about the exhibit. Panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, also a columnist who'd visited Expo 58, expressed high praise for the exhibit.

I think there are a couple of interesting things about these exchanges. I'd like to hear more about what sorts of criticism was being leveled at the design of the United States Pavilion in 1958. I also find it interesting that this was considered a large enough issue to take two or three minutes away from a game show to discuss.

I think it's instructive that the quality of the United States Pavilion was seen as an important issue, one that affects other nations' perceptions of the country.

Fifty-one years later, it has become questionable whether the United States will even have a presence at next year's world's fair, the largest in history and China's first.

Expo 2010 United States Pavilion Press Release

"US Must Act Rapidly to Ensure Participation in China's 2010 World Expo or Risk Major Diplomatic Blunder, Says Consortium"

That's the headline of a press release today from the BH&L Group, of which I'm a member of its advisory board. We're hoping to save the troubled efforts to create a United States Pavilion at Shanghai's Expo 2010, China's first world's fair.

To that end, I created the website UnitedStatesPavilion.com. I'm hoping this might finally get the ball rolling.

The press release can be found at: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/12/prweb1702724.htm.