Dubai is known for its maximalist tastes, and World Expo 2020 will be no different. The event will have a 438-hectare footprint when it lands -- one of the largest sites ever -- transforming the south west of the emirate. Since winning the bid in 2013, the huge construction project has created jobs and infrastructure, but what will be the legacy of the six-month bonanza?
Previous expo hosts, along with the Olympic cities -- the only other event that can compare in scale -- offer valuable lessons for Dubai. So what are the do-s and don't-s of hosting the world's biggest parties?
Previous expo hosts, along with the Olympic cities -- the only other event that can compare in scale -- offer valuable lessons for Dubai. So what are the do-s and don't-s of hosting the world's biggest parties?
The Great Exhibition, London, 1851 —
Where the expo craze all began. Held in the Crystal Palace, a custom-built glass confection 1,848 feet long and 408 feet wide, the unprecedented event hosted technological innovation and cultural curiosities from around the world. Exhibits included the Koh-i-Noor diamond and the Americas Cup. The exhibition, overseen by Prince Albert, was wildly successful, turning a profit from over six million visitors including Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and Lewis Carroll. Legacy: Three years after the exhibition closed, the palace was relocated from Hyde Park to Sydenham Hill in Southeast London. It passed between hands until 1936 when the structure was consumed by fire. Its central legacy is the tradition of global expos, while the Crystal Palace gave its name to the area surrounding its second home. It also introduced to the world the modern public lavatory.
Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1878 —
The third world fair hosted by the French capital, the 75-hectare site contained Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, Thomas Edison's megaphone and the colossal head of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's not-yet-completed Statue of Liberty. Held in an era of rampant colonialism, there was an ugly side too: the fair included a human zoo containing people indigenous to Tahiti, Senegal and Indochina.Legacy: Buildings constructed for the expo were sold to the city, although some are no longer standing. However the most visible symbol from the event lies across the Atlantic, waiting to welcome the huddled masses to New York.
World Fair, Paris, 1889 —
Aligning with the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, 1889's world fair claimed to have had 32 million visitors and over 60,000 exhibitors. Artists including Gauguin and Munch visited, along with Nikola Tesla, and Heineken won the Grand Prize (yes, the beer brewer). It also bequeathed to the city its most famous landmark, the Eiffel Tower. The design was initially much-maligned, but the city warmed to it upon completion. Visitors had to climb stairs up to the second viewing platform, while the top was reserved for construction personnel only.Legacy: The 1,063-feet tower has well outliving its intended 20-year lifespan -- in part due to the radio and telecoms experiments it went on to host. Trains used on a gauge railway around the expo were used on subsequent lines, and an elaborate Pierre Henri Picq-designed building was transported over 4,000 miles to Fort-de-France, Martinique, where it saw a new lease of life as the Schoelcher Library.
Expo 58, Brussels, 1958 —
The first major expo after World War II and the last to be held in Belgium to date, Expo 58 embraced the atomic age with its 335 feet sculpture-come exhibition center, the Atomium. Modeled after an iron crystal but 165 billion times the size, it was, however, made from an iron alloy, stainless steel. The spheres, representing iron atoms, were mostly accessible, and the top contained a panoramic restaurant.Legacy: Undoubtedly one of Europe's oddest buildings, the Atomium still stands.
Montreal Olympic Games, 1976 —
Justin Trudeau's father Pierre was Canadian Prime Minister for the Games, which saw a raft of world records broken and the rivalry between the old Eastern Bloc and the West intensify. Princess Anne, daughter of the Queen of England, competed in equestrian, the US dominated boxing, and Romanian Nadia Comaneci became the first Olympic gymnast to score a perfect 10 on her way to three gold medals.Legacy: The Games are most remembered for the colossal financial burden saddled on Montreal for three decades. Costs overran by 720%, costing $1.48 billion, according to reports, the highest ever for an Olympic Games -- and that figure didn't even include the extensive infrastructure developments required to ready the city for the event. Only in 2006 was the balance for the athletics stadium -- dubbed "The Big Owe" -- paid in full.
Louisiana World Expo, 1984 —
A century after the state's first world fair, Louisiana's $350 million "Class B" expo had a fresh water theme and the Space Shuttle Enterprise parked among its exhibits. But a lack of major attractions stymied the event and not enough people visited to recoup costs. The government had to step in so the expo could limp to the end of its sixth-month run.Legacy: The only world expo to declare bankruptcy. "For the first time, New Orleans threw a a party and nobody came," opined local news.
Barcelona Olympic Games, 1992 —
For all its majesty, the Catalan city was in bad need of a makeover when it made a winning bid for the 25th Olympiad. The Games provided the required stimulus, and by the time 1992 came, a flood of visitors watched Briton Linford Christie win the 100 meters in one of many world-class facilities now dotted throughout the city.Legacy: Barcelona took a considered approach to what is so often a bloated affair, cleaning up its beaches and introducing more green space to the city. The Games, as seen on TV, burnished Barcelona's reputation around the world, and the city made a rapid ascent up tourists' "must visit" lists. Its legacy can be found in the many venues still in use by the city's sports-crazy inhabitants, and subsequent Olympiads, particularly London 2012, have sought to replicate its blueprint.
Athens Olympic Games, 2004 —
The Olympics returned home in 2004, and the city made use of its ancient sites, including the Panathenaic Stadium -- nearly 2,000 years old and made of marble. But despite the homecoming, only 67% of tickets were sold and Greece languished at 15th in the final medal table.Legacy: As with any Games, Athens had to accommodate a number of sports which lacked a large following in Greece. The country's fatal flaw was to give these sports a permanent home. The softball stadium (above) is one of many venues lying unused around Athens. They have played an unlikely role in the Eastern Mediterranean migrant crisis however: the softball outfield became a tented refugee village in 2016, while as many as 3,000 people used the hockey stadium as a temporary home at one point.
Expo 2010, Shanghai —
China's first international expo had a budget of $4.2 billion according to the government. But the real economic injection was close to $60 billion, it was reported at the time. The event set a new bar for the modern expo, with eye-watering amounts spent on national pavilions. The giant soft power exercise attracted top architectural talent including Norman Foster and Bjark Ingels, and Thomas Heatherwick's "Seed Cathedral" won Best Pavilion for the UK.Legacy: Seventy two million visitors, mostly from China, walked a site twice the size of Monaco -- but according to Amnesty International, some 18,000 households were displaced to make room for the expo. Some of that land is now a public park, while a first-of-its-kind expo museum opened in May 2017.
London Olympic Games, 2012 —
The sporting success of London's third Games was left in little doubt by the time the Olympic torch was extinguished. (It didn't hurt that the hosts set a new best in the medal table, either). Part of the reason London won its bid for the Games was its plan to revitalize dilapidated sites in the city's East End. Contaminated industrial fields made way for shiny apartments and sports facilities, and new infrastructure, hospitality and commercial sites popped up in between. Legacy: Local schools make regular use of sites including the Zaha Hadid-designed aquatics center, and the athletics stadium -- which hosted the 2017 world championships, as well as Rugby World Cup fixtures -- is now home to West Ham United Football Club. Many new apartment complexes have helped the capital's housing shortfall, but affordable housing targets have been downgraded, while prices have soared in what it still one of London's poorest boroughs. For local residents, the price of all that gold has been high.
Rio Olympic Games, 2016 —
South America's first Olympics saw Russia take an enforced back seat, and Great Britain stepped up to second in the medal table. Golf had a well-received return and Bolt bowed out with the triple treble. Meanwhile, a young American gymnast left an indelible mark on the Games.Legacy: A feast on the eyeballs Rio may have been, but like Athens 12 years earlier, not that many people saw the spectacle. A serious empty seat problem and ongoing political turmoil put a damper on the Games for some, while its legacy has been seriously compromised by Brazil's economic downturn. The glorious Maracana Stadium became mired in legal battles, leaving the pitch dead, the power cut and gates closed. Reports of a break-in and the theft of memorabilia added insult to injury. Just months after the Games closed, many other venues were also in disrepair. The Maracana has since reopened after local soccer club Flamengo reportedly footed $1 million in bills (and were rewarded in March 2017 with a 4-0 win in their first game).
