Next World’s Fair; Osaka, 1970

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32143, 12 November 1969, Page 15

Next World’s Fair; Osaka, 1970

(Newsweek Feature Service) OSAKA (Japan). Two years ago, the big valley outside this Japanese industrial capital contained little more than bamboo groves and rice paddies. Then one day, after appropriate religious rites—including the burial of several sacred treasures and the sprinkling of holy rice from a hovering helicopter—the bulldozers and builders moved in.

Less than five months from now, the job will be done. And already there is evidence enough to show that when the turnstiles to Expo 70 open on March 15, the Japanese will have erected from the mire a magic city, a splendid monument to modernity unequalled in the long—and sometimes catastrophic—history of international expositions. The Japanese were well aware that theirs would be the first world exposition ever held outside the Western Hemisphere and they were determined it would reflect well on the Orient The total investment for the fair will be SUS 2.3 billion, as opposed to $1 billion for Montreal’s Expo 67. They have lured

77 foreign participants, against 62 at Montreal. And before the fun is over on September 13, officials confidently expect that some 67 million visitors (17 million more than went to Montreal) will have paid between $1.17 (for children) and $2.20 for the privilege of strolling through fantasylapd East

Obstacles Overcome To create what they like to call “the most organised world exposition ever conceived;” the Japanese had to overcome several obstacles—not least among them their own national tendency to allow cities to explode in undirected urban sprawl. So ever since 1965, when the Bureau of International Exhibitions in Paris approved Expo’s theme, “Progress and Harmony for Mankind,” a committee of architects has been working feverishly to draw up controlled, workable and inspired plans. The result seems to be a brilliantly balanced model city. “The five theme buildings form the central core, like the trunk of a tree," says Professor Kenzo Tange, Expo’s 56-year-old chief designer. “Moving roads form its branches and the pavil-

ions correspond to beautiful flowers and fruits.” If Tange’s rhetoric is a trifle florid, try wrapping your mind around some of the fair’s proudest exhibits: “Road of Illusion,” “Towers of the Sun, Youths and Motherhood,” “Passage of Chaos,” “Water of Life” (a whisky pavilion) and “Love” (the theme of a sewing-machine pavilion where 13 couples will be married during the fair). The main theme building, constructed beneath a six-ply plastic skin stretched pver a framework of ball-jointed steel pipes measuring 364 ft by 964 ft will eventually feature a shining model of the solar system—presumably to make Expo smack of more than just internationalism, perhaps universality. Among the other spectacular attractions, designed to appeal to cosmopolitan cultural tastes: Glass Wall Expo Hall, a 15,000-seat theatre with a back wall made entirely of glass. Performers booked so far for the fair include Frank Sinatra, Hany Belafonte and a troupe of Soviet folk dancers.

thing on . space, something on Americana.” The Russians have been secretive about the contents of their $7-million steel pavilion designed in the shape of a hammer and sickle. But it’s a safe bet that the central theme will revolve round the centenary of Lenin’s birth. One of the most nettlesome problems faced by Expo '7O designers was how to transport the estimated 400,000 daily visitors between exhibits. But farsighted planning and Japanese ingenuity have solved that, too. A fully automatic, air-condi-tioned mono-rail system will traverse the entire grounds at 10 miles, an hour, stopping at seven stations. For the less pressed there will be moving roads, a network of conveyor belts enclosed in transparent tubes, that will creep along at li m.p.h. so passengers can step on or off at will. In fact, almost every possible eventuality has been anticipated and coped with—except one that seems indigenous to the age. Several bands of Japanese radicals—who complain about everything from the exposition’s “capitalist, imperialist” nature to its supposed aim of “repressing Japanese culture”— have threatened to disrupt the fair. The prospect of violence is real and terrifying, especially to the planners of the United States pavilion. Its floating dome will likely be a prime target for the favourite weapon of Japanese crazies—-star-shaped steel missiles like those wielded by James Bond’s Japanese allies in the film, “You Only Live Twice.”

A four-storey fine-arts gallery, 1 air * conditioned and . equipped with special glass to filter out ultra- i violet sun rays. The pre- I cautions are well-advised: i the gallery will house i works by Rubens, i Raphael and Henry' Moore, to name just a ’ few. A 64-acre Japanese garden surrounding ah artificial lake. It will include smaller ponds and lakes, rock gardens, flower beds, and 2.3 million trees and bushes. And a 41-acre “amusement park of the future,” full of fun-houses and rides unlike anything a Coney Islander has ever seen. One fun-house will operate antigravity rotors, allowing children to walk up walls. The pavilions—national, regional, and industrial—are always top attractions, and at least two of the largest exhibitors have made their plans public. The Japanese have spent $l7 million on a 404,000-square-foot structure built to look like a cherry blossom (five circular halls joined to-. gether). f Two thousand years of Japanese culture are due for an unprecedented exposure in films, models of: ancient cities and art exhibitions. Huge Dome The United States has built < a 226,800-square-foot plastic i dome which floats on columns ' of air pumped by four giant i compressors. All that has i been said so far Is that its : five storeys will house “some-1