| 1958Brussels | |
|---|---|
 View of the exhibition's main avenue andgondola lift towards theAtomium | |
| Overview | |
| BIE-class | Universal exposition |
| Category | First category General Exposition |
| Name | Expo 58 |
| Area | 2 km2 (490 acres) |
| Visitors | 41,454,412 |
| Participant(s) | |
| Countries | 44 |
| Location | |
| Country | Belgium |
| City | Brussels |
| Venue | Heysel/Heizel Plateau |
| Coordinates | 50°53′50″N4°20′21″E / 50.89722°N 4.33917°E /50.89722; 4.33917 |
| Timeline | |
| Bidding | 7 May 1948 (1948-05-07) |
| Awarded | November 1953 |
| Opening | 17 April 1958 (1958-04-17) |
| Closure | 19 October 1958 (1958-10-19) |
| Universal expositions | |
| Previous | Exposition internationale du bicentenaire de Port-au-Prince inPort-au-Prince |
| Next | Century 21 Exposition inSeattle |
| Specialized Expositions | |
| Previous | Interbau inBerlin |
| Next | Expo 61 inTurin |
| Horticultural expositions | |
| Next | Floriade 1960 inRotterdam |
Expo 58, also known as the1958 Brussels World's Fair (French:Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles de 1958;Dutch:Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling van 1958), was aworld's fair held on theHeysel/Heizel Plateau inBrussels, Belgium, from 17 April to 19 October 1958.[1] It was the first major world's fair registered under theBureau International des Expositions (BIE) afterWorld War II and the fifth in Brussels overall.
Expo 58 left a deep impression on Belgium. It was also the pretext for major upheavals and works in Brussels, whose boulevards were transformed into urban motorways. TheAtomium, built for the occasion, has become one of the city's must-see landmarks.
Expo 58 was the eleventhworld's fair hosted by Belgium, and the fifth in Brussels, following the fairs in 1888,1897,1910 and1935. In 1953, Belgium won the bid for the next world's fair, winning out over other European capitals such as Paris and London.
Nearly 15,000 workers spent three years building the 2 km2 (490 acres) site on theHeysel/Heizel Plateau, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) north-west ofcentral Brussels. Many of the buildings were re-used from the 1935 World's Fair, which had been held on the same site.[2]
The theme of Expo 58 was"Bilan du monde, pour un monde plus humain" (in English: "Evaluation of the world for a more humane world"), a motto inspired by faith in technical and scientific progress, as well as post-war debates over the ethical use ofatomic power.[3]
The exhibition attracted some 41.5 million visitors, making Expo 58 the second largest World's Fair after the 1900Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris, which had attracted 48 million visitors.[3] Every 25 years starting in 1855, Belgium had staged large national events to celebrate its national independence following theBelgian Revolution of 1830. However, theBelgian Government underPrime MinisterAchille Van Acker decided to forego celebrations in 1955 to have additional funding for the 1958 Expo.[4] Since Expo 58, Belgium has not organised any more world's fairs.
More than forty nations took part in Expo 58, with more than forty-five national pavilions, not including those of theBelgian Congo and Belgium itself.
The site is best known for theAtomium, a giant model of a unit cell of aniron crystal (each sphere representing anatom). During the 1958 European exposition, themolecular model hosted an observation of more than forty-one million visitors while refining an astonishment foratomism by distant global communities.[5][6] The atomistic model was opened with a call for world peace and social and economic progress, issued byKing Baudouin I. The Atomium was originally foreseen to last only the six months of the exhibition; but it was never taken down, its outer coating was renewed on the 50th anniversary of the exhibition, and it stands nowadays as just as much an emblem of Brussels as theEiffel Tower is of Paris.
Notable exhibitions include thePhilips Pavilion, where "Poème électronique", commissioned specifically for the location, was played back from 425 loudspeakers, placed at specific points as designed byIannis Xenakis, andLe Corbusier.[7]
The Belgian Congo section was located in 7.7 hectares (19 acres) in close proximity to the Atomium model. The Belgian Congo, today known as theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, was at that time a Belgian colonial holding. Expo organizers also included participants from theUN Trust Territories ofRuanda-Urundi (today,Rwanda andBurundi) in the Belgian Congo section, without differentiation.[8] This section was divided into seven pavilions: the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi Palace, agriculture; Catholic missions; insurance, banks, trade; mines and metallurgy; energy, construction, and transport; avillage indigène (indigenous village). The Belgian Congo section was, above all, intended to display the "civilizing" work of the Belgian colonialism.[3] Thevillage indigène is of the most notable modern "human zoos" of the 20th century.[9]
Another exhibition at the Belgian pavilion was the Congolese village that some have branded ahuman zoo.[10]
TheMinistry of Colonies built the Congolese exhibit, intending to demonstrate their claim to have "civilized" the "primitive Africans." Native Congolese art was rejected for display, as the Ministry claimed it was "insufficiently Congolese." Instead, nearly all of the art on display was created by Europeans in a purposefully primitive and imitative style, and the entrance of the exhibit featured a bust ofKing Leopold II, under whose colonial rule millions of Congolese died. The 700 Congolese chosen to be exhibited by the Ministry were educated urbanites referred to by Belgians asévolués, meaning literally "evolved," but were made to dress in "primitive" clothing, and an armed guard blocked them from communicating with white Belgians who came to observe them. The exotic nature of the exhibit was lauded by visitors and international press, with the Belgian socialist newspaperLe Peuple praising the portrayal of Africans, saying it was "in complete agreement with historical truth." However, in mid-July the Congolese protested the condescending treatment they were receiving from spectators and demanded to be sent home, abruptly ending the exhibit and eliciting some sympathy from European newspapers.[3]
The Austrian pavilion was designed by Austrian architectKarl Schwanzer inmodernist style. It was later transferred toVienna to host the museum of the 20th century. In 2011 it was reopened under the new name21er Haus. It included a model Austrian Kindergarten, which doubled as a day care facility for the employees, theVienna Philharmonic playing behind glass, and a modelnuclear fusion reactor that fired every 5 minutes.
The exposition "One Day in Czechoslovakia" was designed by Jindřich Santar who cooperated with artistsJiří Trnka, Antonín Kybal,Stanislav Libenský andJan Kotík. Architects of the simple, but modern and graceful construction were František Cubr, Josef Hrubý and Zdeněk Pokorný. The team's artistic freedom, so rare in the hard-line communist regime of the 1950s, was ensured by the government committee for exhibitions chairmanFrantišek Kahuda. He supported the famousLaterna Magika show, as well as Josef Svoboda's technically uniquePolyekran. The Czechoslovak pavilion was visited by 6 million people and was officially awarded the best pavilion of the Expo 58.[11]
The West German pavilion was designed by the architectsEgon Eiermann andSep Ruf. The world press called it the most polished and sophisticated pavilion of the exhibition.[12]
Hungary was represented by a large modular modernist pavilion designed by the architectLajos Gádoros. The scenario for the exhibition was compiled by the writerIván Boldizsár. It hosted a mix of early-1900s paintings byTivadar Csontváry Kosztka,József Egry andGyula Derkovitz, and modern ones such as theLife in Budapest fresco painted on aluminium panels byTúry Mária andKádár György. In the entrance hall hungJózsef Somogyi andKerényi Jenő's dynamic statue groupDancers, which won a Grand Prix, and was later bought by the city ofNamur.Margit Kovács' sculptureThe Spinner was also on display.
The exhibition took place during very turbulent times for Hungary. The decision to participate was made in 1955, under the Stalinist party leaderMátyás Rákosi, shortly after he got rid of his reformist prime ministerImre Nagy. By the time the exhibition closed in 1958, the party leader was exiled, and the prime minister was tried and executed.[13]
The Liechtenstein pavilion featured a bronze bust ofFranz Joseph II at the entrance, a collection of weapons, stamps, and important historical documents from the Principality, paintings from the Prince's personal collection, and exhibits showcasing Liechtenstein's industry, landscape, and religious history. Also featured in the building was an interior garden with a circular walkway enabling visitors to browse the entire pavilion.[14]
The Mexican pavilion was designed by the architectPedro Ramírez Vázquez. It was awarded the exposition's star of gold.
The city of Paris had its own pavilion, separate from the French exhibit.
The UK pavilion was produced by the designerJames Gardner, architect Howard Lobb and engineerFelix Samuely. The on-site British architect wasMichael Blower, Brussels born and bilingual.[15]
The Soviet pavilion was a large impressive building which was folded up and taken back to Russia when Expo 58 ended. There was a bookstore selling science and technology books in English and other languages published by theMoscow Press.
The exhibit featured acelestial mechanics display of the experimentalSputnik 1 andSputnik 2prototypes placed into orbit during theInternational Geophysical Year.[16] Therobotic spacecraft waslow earth orbital satellite which debuted as the Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957 for an international spectators observation from the surface of the earth. The spacecraft completed thegeocentric orbit upon depleting thesilver zinc batterycapacity for anatmospheric entry of theearth's atmosphere on 4 January 1958.
The exposition highlighted a model of the Soviet Union's watercraft vesselLenin the firstnuclear-powered icebreaker, and Soviet automobiles:GAZ-21 Volga,GAZ-13 Chaika,ZIL-111,Moskvitch 407 and 423, trucksGAZ-53 andMAZ-525.[17] The Soviet exposition was awarded with a Grand Prix.[17]
The US pavilion was quite spacious and included a fashion show with models walking down a large spiral staircase, an electronic computer that demonstrated a knowledge of history, and a colour television studio behind glass. It also served as the concert venue for performance by theSeventh Army Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Edward Lee Alley.[18][19] It was designed by architectEdward Durell Stone. It would also play host to theUniversity of California Marching Band which had financed its own way to the fair under the direction of James Berdahl.[20] The United States pavilion consisted of 4 buildings,[21] one of which hostedAmerica the Beautiful, a 360° movie attraction inCircarama made byWalt Disney Productions.[22] The film would subsequently travel to theAmerican National Exhibition inMoscow in 1959,[23] and would find its first American audiences atDisneyland inAnaheim in 1960.
The government ofYugoslavia was among the first to accept the Expo 58 invitation in November 1954. The exhibition was seen as an opportunity to showcase the country, its delineation from the Soviet Union, independent socioeconomic system and international profile, as well as the impact of these policies on the cultural and artistic life. The content was curated by the architectBranislav Kojić and the writer and art-criticOto Bihalji-Merin.
The modernist pavilion was designed by the architectVjenceslav Richter, who originally proposed to suspend the whole structure from a giant cable-stayed mast. When that proved too complicated, Richter devised a tension column consisting of six steel arches supported by a pre-stressed cable, which stood in front of the pavilion as a visual marker and symbolised Yugoslavia's six constituent republics.
It housed four galleries:
The pavilion was praised for its elegance and simplicity and Richter was awarded as Knight of the Order of the Belgian Crown. After the end of Expo 58, it was sold and reconstructed as a school,St Paul's College (Wevelgem) [nl], in the Belgian municipality ofWevelgem, where it still stands.[24]
The autograph of Mozart'sRequiem was placed on display. At some point, someone was able to gain access to the manuscript, tearing off the bottom right-hand corner of the second to last page (folio 99r/45r), containing the words "Quam olim d: C:". As of 2012[update] the perpetrator has not been identified and the fragment has not been recovered.[25]
The event offered the occasion for the organization by thousands ofcritics andfilmmakers from all over the world, of the first universal film poll in history.[26] The poll received nominations from 117 critics from 26 nations.Броненосец Потёмкин (Battleship Potemkin) received 100 votes withThe Gold Rush second with 95.[27]
A jury of young filmmakers (Robert Aldrich,Satyajit Ray,Alexandre Astruc,Michael Cacoyannis,Juan Bardem,Francesco Maselli andAlexander Mackendrick) were due to select a winner from the nominees but voted not to. Instead they indicated the following as still holding value to young filmmakers:Battleship Potemkin;Grand Illusion;Mother;The Passion of Joan of Arc;The Gold Rush andBicycle Thieves.[28]
Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra performs at the Brussels World Fair 1958
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