Expo 67

Background The idea of hosting the 1967 World Exhibition dates back to 1957. "I believe it was Colonel Sevigny who first asked me to do what I could to bring Canada's selection as the site for the international exposition in 1967," wrote Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in his memoir. Montreal's mayor, Sarto Fournier, backed the proposal, allowing Canada to make a bid to the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). At the BIE's May 5, 1960 meeting in Paris, Moscow was awarded the fair after five rounds of voting that eliminated Austria's and then Canada's bids. In April 1962, however, the Soviets scrapped plans to host the fair because of financial constraints and security concerns. Montreal's new mayor, Jean Drapeau, lobbied the Canadian government to try again for the fair, which they did. On November 13, 1962, the BIE changed the location of the World Exhibition to Canada, Several sites were proposed as the main Expo grounds. One location that was considered was Mount Royal Park, to the north of the downtown core. But it was Drapeau's idea to create new islands in the St. Lawrence river, and to enlarge the existing Saint Helen's Island. The choice overcame opposition from Montreal's surrounding municipalities, and also prevented land speculation. On March 29, 1963, the location for the World's Fair was officially announced as being Saint Helen's Island. Key people and Ontario pavilions in view Expo 67 did not get off to a smooth start; in 1963, many top organizing committee officials resigned. The main reason for the resignations was Mayor Drapeau's choice of the site on new islands to be created around the existing St. Helen's Island and also that a computer program predicted that the event could not possibly be constructed in time. Another more likely reason for the mass resignations was that on April 22, 1963, the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson took power. This meant that former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative government appointees to the board of directors of the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition were likely forced to resign. Canadian diplomat Pierre Dupuy was named Commissioner General, after Diefenbaker appointee Paul Bienvenu resigned from the post in 1963. One of the main responsibilities of the Commissioner General was to attract other nations to build pavilions at Expo. Dupuy's 'right-hand' man was Robert Fletcher Shaw, the deputy commissioner general and vice-president of the corporation. As historian Pierre Berton put it, the cooperation between Canada's French- and English-speaking communities "was the secret of Expo's success—'the Québécois flair, the English-Canadian pragmatism.'" However, Berton also points out that this is an over-simplification of national stereotypes. Arguably Expo did, for a short period anyway, bridge the "Two Solitudes." Montebello conference produces theme In May 1963, a group of prominent Canadian thinkers—including Alan Jarvis, director of the National Gallery of Canada; novelists Hugh MacLennan and Gabrielle Roy; John Tuzo Wilson, geophysicist; and Claude Robillard, town planner—met for three days at the Seigneury Club in Montebello, Quebec. The theme, "Man and His World", was based on the 1939 book entitled Terre des Hommes (translated as Wind, Sand and Stars) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In Roy's introduction to the Expo 67 corporation's book, entitled Terre des Hommes/Man and His World, she elucidates the theme: The organizers also created seventeen theme elements for Man and his World: , a housing complex built for Expo 67 • Du Pont Auditorium of Canada: The philosophy and scientific content of theme exhibits were presented and emphasized in this 372 seat hall. • Habitat 67 • Labyrinth • Man and his Health • Man in the Community • Man the Explorer: Man, his Planet and Space; Man and Life; Man and the Oceans; Man and the Polar Regions • Man the Creator: The Gallery of Fine Arts; Contemporary Sculpture; Industrial Design; Photography. • Man the Producer: Resources for Man; Man in Control; Progress. • Man the Provider Construction begins train Construction started on August 13, 1963, with an elaborate ceremony hosted by Mayor Drapeau on barges anchored in the St. Lawrence River. Ceremonially, construction began when Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson pulled a lever that signalled a front-end loader to dump the first batch of fill to enlarge Île Sainte-Hélène, and Quebec premier Jean Lesage spread the fill with a bulldozer. Of the 25 million tons of fill needed to construct the islands, 10–12% was coming from the Montreal Metro's excavations, a public works project that was already under construction before Expo was awarded to Montreal. The remainder of the fill came from quarries on Montreal and the South Shore, however even with that it was insufficient and so bodies of water on both islands were added (lakes and canals) to reduce the amount of fill required. Expo's initial construction period mainly centered on enlarging Saint Helen's Island, creating the artificial island of Île Notre-Dame and lengthening and enlarging the Mackay Pier which became the Cité du Havre. While construction continued, the land rising out of Montreal harbour was not owned by the Expo Corporation yet. After the final mounds of earth completed the islands, the grounds that would hold the fair were officially transferred from the City of Montreal to the corporation on June 20, 1964. On April 28, 1967, opening day, everything was ready, with one exception: Habitat 67, which was then displayed as a work in progress. Building and enlarging the islands, along with the new Concorde Bridge built to connect them with the site-specific mass transit system known as the Montreal Expo Express, plus a boat pier, cost more than the Saint Lawrence Seaway project did only five years earlier: this was even before any buildings or infrastructure were constructed. Logo The logo was designed by Montreal artist Julien Hébert. The basic unit of the logo is an ancient symbol of man. Two of the symbols (pictograms of "man") are linked as to represent friendship. The icon was repeated in a circular arrangement to represent "friendship around the world". The logotype uses the lower-case Optima typeface. It did not enjoy unanimous support from federal politicians, as some of them tried to kill it with a motion in the House of Commons of Canada. Complaints were made about the suitability of the song, as its lyrics mentioned neither Montreal nor Expo 67. However, the song that most Canadians associate with Expo was written by Bobby Gimby, a veteran commercial jingle writer who composed the popular Centennial tune "Ca-na-da". Gimby earned the name the "Pied Piper of Canada". The theme song "Something to Sing About", used for the Canadian pavilion, had been written for a 1963 television special. Expo opens Official opening ceremonies were held on Thursday afternoon, April 27, 1967. The ceremonies were an invitation-only event, held at Place des Nations. Canada's Governor General, Roland Michener, proclaimed the exhibition open after the Expo flame was ignited by Prime Minister Pearson. On hand were over 7,000 media and invited guests including 53 heads of state. A capacity crowd at Place d'Accueil participated in the atomic clock-controlled countdown that ended when the exhibition opened precisely at 9:30 a.m. EST. The first person through the Expo gates at ''Place d'Accueil'' was Al Carter, a 41-year-old jazz drummer from Chicago, who was recognized for his accomplishment by Expo 67's director of operations Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien. Beaubien presented Carter with a gold watch for his feat. (L to R: Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Diana Ross) performing "The Happening", broadcast live from Expo 67 on The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, May 7, 1967 On opening day, there was considerable comment on the uniform of the hostesses from the UK Pavilion. The dresses had been designed to the then-new miniskirt style, popularized a year earlier by Mary Quant. and Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson on the minirail at Expo 67, July 3, 1967. In conjunction with the opening of Expo 67, the Canadian Post Office Department issued a 5¢ stamp commemorating the fair, designed by Harvey Thomas Prosser. Entertainment, Ed Sullivan Show, and VIPs The World Festival of Art and Entertainment at Expo 67 featured art galleries, opera, ballet and theatre companies, orchestras, jazz groups, famous Canadian pop musicians and other cultural attractions. Many pavilions had music and performance stages, where visitors could find free concerts and shows, including the Ukrainian Shumka Dancers. Micheline Legendre organized Canada's first puppetry festival in conjunction with the Expo. Most of the featured entertainment took place in the following venues: Place des Arts, Expo Theatre, Place des Nations, La Ronde, and Automotive Stadium. Another attraction was the Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo 1967 at the Autostade in Montreal. The fair was visited by many of the most notable people at the time, including Canada's monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, Lyndon B. Johnson, Princess Grace of Monaco, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie, Charles de Gaulle, Bing Crosby, Harry Belafonte, Maurice Chevalier, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Marlene Dietrich. Musicians like Thelonious Monk, Grateful Dead, Tiny Tim, the Tokens and Jefferson Airplane entertained the crowds. Problems Despite its successes, there were problems: Front de libération du Québec militants had threatened to disrupt the exhibition, but were inactive during this period. Vietnam war protesters picketed during the opening day, April 28. American President Lyndon B. Johnson's visit became a focus of war protesters. Threats that the Cuba pavilion would be destroyed by anti-Castro forces were not carried out. In June, the Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East flared up again in the Six-Day War, which resulted in Kuwait pulling out of the fair in protest to the way Western nations dealt with the war.) that attended Expo 67 at a time when Canada's population was only 20 million, setting a per-capita record for World Exhibition attendance that still stands. Starting at 2:00 p.m., Expo Commissioner General Pierre Dupuy officiated over the medal ceremony, in which participating nations and organizations received gold and silver medallions, and over the ceremony in which national flags were lowered in the reverse order to which they had been raised, with Canada's flag lowered first and Nigeria's lowered last. After Prime Minister Pearson doused the Expo flame, Governor General Roland Michener closed Expo at Place des Nations with the mournful spontaneous farewell: "It is with great regret that I declare that the Universal and International Exhibition of 1967 has come to an official end." All rides and the minirail were shut down by 3:50 p.m., and the Expo grounds closed at 4:00 p.m., with the last Expo Express train leaving for ''Place d'Accueil'' at that time. A fireworks display, that went on for an hour, was Expo's concluding event. Expo performed better financially than expected. Expo was intended to have a deficit, shared between the federal, provincial and municipal levels of government. Significantly better-than-expected attendance revenue reduced the debt to well below the original estimates. The final financial statistics, in 1967 Canadian dollars, were: revenues of $221,239,872, costs of $431,904,683, and a deficit of $210,664,811. ==Pavilions==

at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. Expo 67 featured 90 pavilions representing Man and His World themes, nations, corporations, and industries including the U.S. pavilion, a geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller. Many pavilions had innovative presentations, almost all using film in one way or another; as a commentator said, "film was everywhere, unreeling at a furious rate. Expo was a fair of film." Expo 67 also featured the Habitat 67 modular housing complex designed by architect Moshe Safdie, which was later purchased by private individuals and is still occupied. The most popular pavilion was the Soviet Union's exhibit. It attracted about 13 million visitors. Rounding out the top five pavilions, in terms of attendance were: the Canadian Pavilion (11 million visitors), the United States (9 million), France (8.5 million), and Czechoslovakia (8 million). Several countries were absent due to different motives and financial reasons, including Spain, South Africa, the People's Republic of China, and many South American countries. ==Legacy==

Man and His World (1968–1984) After 1967, the exposition struggled for several summer seasons as a standing collection of international pavilions known as "Man and His World". Space for the basin, the boathouses, the changing rooms and other buildings was obtained by demolishing many of the former pavilions and cutting in half the area taken by the artificial lake and the canals. By late 1973, both major transportation systems for the site, the Blue Minirail and Expo Express, had permanently ceased operation. In 1976, a fire destroyed the acrylic outer skin of Buckminster Fuller's dome, and the previous year the Ontario pavilion was lost due to a major fire. With the site falling into disrepair, and several pavilions left abandoned and vandalized, it began to resemble ruins of a futuristic city. In 1980, the Notre Dame Island site was reopened (primarily for the Floralies) making both islands simultaneously accessible again, albeit only for a brief time. Minor thematic exhibitions were held at the Quebec pavilion at this period. Before the start of the 1982 season, the Saint Helen's Island site permanently closed, Park and surviving relics , an environmental museum on Saint Helen's Island. After the Man and His World summer exhibitions were discontinued, with most pavilions and remnants demolished between 1985 and 1987, the former site for Expo 67 on Saint Helen's Island and Notre Dame Island was incorporated into a municipal park run by the city of Montreal. The park, named Parc des Îles, opened in 1992 during Montreal's 350th anniversary In 2000, the park was renamed from Parc des Îles to Parc Jean-Drapeau, after Mayor Jean Drapeau, who had brought the exhibition to Montreal. In 2006, the corporation that runs the park also changed its name from the Société du parc des Îles to the Société du parc Jean-Drapeau. Part of the structural remains of the Canadian pavilion survive as La Toundra Hall. It is now a special events and banquet hall, (Katimavik's distinctive inverted pyramid and much of the rest of the Canadian pavilion were dismantled during the 1970s). Place des Nations, where the opening and closing ceremonies were held, remains, however in an abandoned and deteriorating state (its sizable walkways that bridged all the site's structures was demolished in 2024). The Jamaican, Tunisian and partial remains of the Korean pavilion (roof only) also survive, as well as the CIBC banking centre. In Cite du Havre the Expo Theatre, Administration and Fine Arts buildings remain. Other remaining structures include sculptures and landscaping. The Montreal Metro subway station Berri–UQAM still has an original "Man and His World" welcome sign with logo above the pedestrian tunnel entrance to the Yellow Line. La Ronde continued to be operated by the City of Montreal following the Expo. In 2001 it was leased to the Texas-based amusement park company Six Flags, which has operated the park since. The Alcan Aquarium built for the Expo remained in operation for a number of decades until its closure in 1991. The Expo 67 parking lot was converted into Victoria STOLport, an experimental short-take off airport for a brief time in the 1970s. The Olympic basin is used by many local rowing clubs. The Czechoslovak pavilion was designed to be disassembled and sold, attracting the interest of the province of Newfoundland, though its bid was not preferred by the Czechoslovak government at first. On September 5, 1967, Ceskoslovenske Aerolinie Flight 523 crashed during takeoff from Gander International Airport, and many people were saved by the residents of Gander, which may have led to Newfoundland's purchase offer being accepted. It was assembled as the Grand Falls Arts and Culture Centre, now the Gordon Pinsent Centre for the Arts. The government of Newfoundland also purchased the Yugoslavian pavilion, a triangular building that was converted into the Provincial Seamen's Museum in Grand Bank. One of the few Vaporettos that shuttled visitors around the park on "Expo Service No. 5" survived. After it was decommissioned it ended up in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1971 where it gave harbour tours. It was later moved to Nova Scotia and then New Brunswick. It has subsequently been renovated and returned to Charlottetown. Expo's lasting effects In a political and cultural context, Expo 67 was seen as a landmark moment in Canadian history. In 1968, as a salute to the cultural impact the exhibition had on the city, Montreal's Major League baseball team, the Expos (now the Washington Nationals), was named after the event. In the years that followed, the tensions between the English- and French-speaking communities would continue. As an early 21st-century homage to the fair, satirists Bowser and Blue wrote a full-length musical set at Expo 67 called The Paris of America, which ran for six sold-out weeks at Centaur Theatre in Montreal in April and May 2003. Expo 67 was one of the most successful World Exhibitions, and is still regarded fondly by Canadians. In this way, it has much in common with the 1964–65 New York World's Fair. In 2007, a new group, Expo 17, was looking to bring a smaller-scale — BIE sanctioned — exposition to Montreal for Expo 67's 50th anniversary and Canada's sesquicentennial in 2017. Expo 17 hoped a new world's fair would regenerate the spirit of Canada's landmark centennial project. • Between March 17 and October 1, the McCord Museum presented Fashioning Expo 67, an exhibition focused on the fashion and esthetic that was put forward during the Expo. • At the Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition In Search of Expo 67 offered nineteen works of art by artists who were born after the 1967 universal exposition. Their work was inspired by Expo 67 and shed a new light and vision on this event. • The Stewart Museum presented Expo 67 – a World of Dreams, an immersive multimedia experience inspired by the technological innovations displayed during Expo 67. As part of the exhibition, visitors could experience Expo 67 through virtual reality. • The Centre d'Histoire de Montréal put forward Explosion 67 – Youth and their World, which presented youth's experience of the Expo 67 and was based on archive material and interviews. • Echo 67 was presented at the Montreal Biosphere starting on April 27. This exhibition presented the environmental legacy of Expo 67. • Outdoors exhibitions and events were presented across downtown Montreal. From September 18 to 30, 2017, the central square of Place des Arts was the site of a multi-screen installation Expo 67 Live, with images of Expo 67 projected onto exterior surfaces of arts complex, some as high as five storeys. The 27-minute work was produced by the National Film Board of Canada and was intended to create an immersive sense of being back at the world's fair, while also evoking the NFB's pioneering multi-screen production at Expo, In the Labyrinth. The installation is directed by and produced by René Chénier. • In April 2017, the city hall of Montreal offered its visitors an exhibition of photographs taken during Expo 67. • On April 25, the documentary thriller Expo 67 Mission Impossible premiered at the Maisonneuve theatre. It presents the story of the men and women who made Expo 67 a reality and uses archival footage and exclusive interviews with the creators of the 1967 World Fair. The film premiere was part of an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 universal exposition. When visiting these locations and taking part in these events, visitors had access to an electronic or paper passport in which they could collect stamps, just as it had been the case during Expo 67. ==In popular culture==

• A major portion of the movie "A Thief Is A Thief", which was the pilot episode of the television series It Takes A Thief, was filmed at the Expo in 1967. • In Daredevil #33-34, cover-dated October-November 1967, Matt Murdock and his friends Foggy Nelson and Karen Page take train up to Montreal to visit the Expo, where they encounter the Beetle. • An episode of the 1970s television series Battlestar Galactica, "Greetings from Earth Part 2", was filmed at the Expo site in 1979. The Expo structures were used to represent a city on an alien world where the people had all been killed by a long-ago war. • The 1979 post-apocalyptic film Quintet, directed by Robert Altman, was filmed in early 1978 on the Expo site. The extreme cold made the shoot challenging for the cast and crew. • The Canadian band Alvvays released a video for the song "Dreams Tonite" in which they have been digitally inserted into footage taken during the fair. The band said in a statement that Canada was at its coolest 50 years ago in Montreal at Expo '67". • The 1988 song "Purple Toupee" by They Might Be Giants contains the line 'I shouted out, "Free the Expo '67"'. ==See also==