So as it turns out, they are still doing World's Fairs. I hadn't realized it, but they are happening all over the world, and with surprising regularity. There were only three in the 2000's, but there was one in 2012 in South Korea, and one in 2010 in Shanghai. The next one is planned for 2015 in Milan, and there are two more with set locations on the books before 2020. I find something so reassuring about a world that continues this odd tradition. Louie CK has a wonderful bit about how everything is amazing and nobody is happy, but if we are still stopping every couple of years to create some new buildings and celebrate the absolute wonder of the world we live in and the direction we are heading in, then maybe there is some hope for a global community after all.
I was thinking a lot about World's Fairs last week in Seattle. I was there for work, but my wife came along and we were able to really take in the city. There are tons of great things to do in Seattle (don't miss the Underground Tour, by the way) but I was really taken with the Space Needle and the area just around it. You may not know that the Space Needle along with the Monorails that run through downtown Seattle were built as part of the '62 World's Fair, or as it was then called, the Century 21 Exposition. The event ran from April 21, 1962 to October 21 of that same year and was credited to some extent with revitalizing Seattle culturally. Now, 52 years later, it's still a fun place to walk around in. You can still easily picture the massive crowds (about 10 million people visited the 62 Fair) and the excitement of the events and exhibits.
I'd heard references to World's Fairs many times in my life, but I never really had a sense for what they were all about until reading Erik Larson's page-turner, Devil In The White City. Before that book, the only piece of World Fair history I knew of were the odd towers and the big globe near Shea Stadium (and the fact that my friend Dave's folks met Robert Kennedy there). Larson's book, however, took me deep inside the development and the execution of the 1892 World's Columbian Exposition on the waterfront in Chicago. I can't recommend the book highly enough, though if you have a weak stomach you may want to skip every other chapter or so. Among other great moments at this massive event were the debut of electric lighting (think about THAT for a moment) and the unveiling of the first ever Ferris Wheel. The wheel was America's answer to the Eiffel Tower, which had been created as the front door of its own World Fair four years prior. Despite the tower being the tallest structure in the world at the time (and for another 37 years thereafter) the Ferris Wheel was a massive success and thrilled riders like nothing before.
Seattle recently installed a Ferris Wheel that hangs over its shoreline much like the one that currently operates in Chicago. The view out over the water across to Bainbridge Island and the Olympic mountain range is stunning, but it wasn't as exciting for me as it was to walk through the 62 expo grounds. To be in the very future that the original attendees were trying to envision, while looking at some of the very same buildings they saw. The architecture is dated, but the optimism that the early 60's had for the future was so present in the way the place was sculpted that it is impossible to miss. They expected us to be the Jetsons! How sad that most of the movies we make these days that look ahead 50 or 100 years feature a post apocalyptic, dystopian landscape. Rather than working as our butlers and cooks, we expect robots to have risen up against us.
The last Fair on American soil was way back in 1984 in New Orleans. In total, the have only been 20 of them in the US since back in 1851. I want more. I want to ponder the direction our culture is pointing us in. I want to gather with people from every corner of the world and marvel at what we are creating. I want to set a physical mark in time that the people of 2066 can visit and wonder right back at us about.
Who can I talk to about making this happen?
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