A birthday party for a country
In 1967 Canada marked the hundredth anniversary of Confederation, the 1867 union of its first provinces. The centrepiece of the celebrations was a world’s fair in Montreal, officially a Universal and International Exhibition, which ran from 27 April to 29 October 1967. Most people simply called it Expo 67.
The fair had an unusual history. The international body that approves world’s fairs had at one stage favoured Moscow as host for 1967, but the Soviet Union withdrew, and Canada’s bid for Montreal was accepted in 1962. That left only about five years to plan and build a very large site, a deadline that was widely regarded at the time as ambitious. The mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, was a driving force behind the project, and the city’s new metro system, which opened in October 1966, was built partly with the fair in mind.
The site and the theme
The fair was built on islands in the St Lawrence River. It used the existing Île Sainte-Hélène, enlarged, and a new island, Île Notre-Dame, created largely from rock and earth, much of it reportedly excavated during the metro’s construction. A separate amusement area, La Ronde, offered rides and entertainment. Visitors moved around on a fast elevated train, the Expo Express, and on a small monorail called the minirail, and the site also had canals and footbridges.
The official theme was “Man and His World” (Terre des Hommes in French), borrowed from the title of a book by the French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was divided into sub-themes such as man the explorer, man the creator, man the producer and man in the community, which were explored in dedicated thematic pavilions alongside the national ones. The theme was ambitious and fairly general, and many visitors came more for the buildings and entertainment than for the ideas.
Pavilions people remembered
More than sixty countries took part, and many built striking structures on the grounds. A few stand out.
- The United States pavilion. The American building was a huge geodesic dome designed by the architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller. Its transparent skin burned away in a fire in 1976, but the steel structure survived and now houses an environmental museum known as the Biosphere. Inside, American exhibits included material from the space race, which was a draw for many visitors.
- The Soviet pavilion. The Soviet Union built a very large hall with a sweeping roof and exhibits about science, industry and space. It was among the most visited buildings, and it was also one of the most politically charged, since 1967 was the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
- France and Quebec. France and the province of Quebec had neighbouring pavilions. Quebec’s presence on the world stage was a sensitive subject, and it became a matter of international controversy when the French president, Charles de Gaulle, visited Montreal in July and ended a speech with the words Vive le Quebec libre, a story that belongs to its own article.
- Czechoslovakia. Its pavilion was admired for its design and for the Kino-Automat, a film in which the audience voted at key moments on how the plot should continue.
- Canada. The host country’s main building featured an inverted pyramid, the Katimavik, and a number of Canadian provinces and industries had their own displays.
One further structure became an architectural landmark: Habitat 67, a housing complex designed by the young architect Moshe Safdie. It stacked prefabricated concrete units into an irregular cluster, with terraces on many of them, as an experiment in dense but private urban living. It remains a residential building today.
Films, shows and the visitor experience
Expo was also a showcase for new forms of cinema. Several pavilions used multiple screens, large formats or unusual projection, and the National Film Board of Canada and others experimented with ways of presenting moving images. For many visitors the fair was their first encounter with such techniques, and it became a reference point for later large-format film.
Visitors could buy an “Expo passport” and have it stamped at pavilions, a cheap and popular souvenir. The entertainment programme included concerts, dance and theatre from many countries. Lines for the most popular pavilions were often long.
Visitors and reception
Official figures put total admissions at roughly 50 million, which counts each entry, so it does not mean 50 million separate people. Heads of state and royalty visited the fair, and Canadian families travelled from across the country for what, for many, was a once-in-a-lifetime trip. The fair opened in a generally upbeat mood, and it was held during a year of other major events, including the Six-Day War in June, a reminder that the optimism of the fairground sat alongside serious international tension.
Expo was widely regarded as a success, both for its attendance and for the confidence it gave to Canada and to Montreal, which had been seen as an older, somewhat provincial city. Not everything was smooth: there were queues, crowds and, as with any large event, complaints about prices. Quebec’s changing politics also meant that the fair was not simply a celebration of unity for everyone.
What it left behind
The fair was meant to be temporary, and many pavilions were demolished after it closed. Some structures remained, including Habitat 67, the Biosphere and parts of the site that became a public park, and the islands themselves are still used for recreation and events. Expo also left a lasting reputation as a model of what a world’s fair could achieve. Looking back, it is often described as part of the optimism that marked the mid-1960s, a reminder that the legacy of 1967 includes civic celebration as well as protest and conflict.