What Happened To Cool World's Fairs ? - Beyond Tiki

E EnchantedTikiGoth Member Calgary, Canada Joined: Dec 31, 2003 Posts: 355	E EnchantedTikiGoth Posted posted on Mon, Jun 21, 2004 6:05 PM I still have fond memories of Expo 86 in Vancouver... I was 9 when it struck, and my family took a cross-province trip to the coast to see it. Most of my memories are a bit incomplete (and our family photos don't help much since we apparently didn't have any real principle behind the camera's use... "here's a bush... an unimportant sign... a picture of our son in front of some wall..."), but it's more the impression of them that matters. It probably left a greater impression that it ought, but I was small. I remember a very 1980's aesthetic sensibility... On one hand very colourful and utilitarian with exposed pipes and girders painted in bright primaries. On the other, it was very dark and avant garde, akin to Cirque du Soliel. Probably a lot of why I'm still into 80's style nowadays. Some of my more vivid memories include the giant hockey puck and stick, the Canada Pavilion with it's flying UFO, the cedar forest outside the BC Pavilion, the giant undulating roadway sculpture with all sorts of vehicles painted mat grey, a giant room filled with multi-lingual Teddy Ruxpins (no really) and how my parents wouldn't let me use my souvenier money to buy a Sharkticon Transformer, saying that I could just buy it when we got home and then never actually doing so. Calgary actually tried to get the 2005 Expo, but failed. I question how good of one we could have produced anyways. At least it would have had a nice ironic theme: our relationship with the land, in a city for which the oil industry is primary. Cory

I still have fond memories of Expo 86 in Vancouver... I was 9 when it struck, and my family took a cross-province trip to the coast to see it. Most of my memories are a bit incomplete (and our family photos don't help much since we apparently didn't have any real principle behind the camera's use... "here's a bush... an unimportant sign... a picture of our son in front of some wall..."), but it's more the impression of them that matters.

It probably left a greater impression that it ought, but I was small. I remember a very 1980's aesthetic sensibility... On one hand very colourful and utilitarian with exposed pipes and girders painted in bright primaries. On the other, it was very dark and avant garde, akin to Cirque du Soliel. Probably a lot of why I'm still into 80's style nowadays.

Some of my more vivid memories include the giant hockey puck and stick, the Canada Pavilion with it's flying UFO, the cedar forest outside the BC Pavilion, the giant undulating roadway sculpture with all sorts of vehicles painted mat grey, a giant room filled with multi-lingual Teddy Ruxpins (no really) and how my parents wouldn't let me use my souvenier money to buy a Sharkticon Transformer, saying that I could just buy it when we got home and then never actually doing so.

Calgary actually tried to get the 2005 Expo, but failed. I question how good of one we could have produced anyways. At least it would have had a nice ironic theme: our relationship with the land, in a city for which the oil industry is primary.

Cory

Post #97617 by EnchantedTikiGoth on Mon, Jun 21, 2004 6:05 PM