Seville Expo '92

The Universal Exhibition of Seville 1992 – Expo '92 (officially: Exposición Universal de Sevilla 1992) was an universal exhibition held from Monday 20 April to Monday 12 October 1992, at the Isla de La Cartuja, in Seville, Spain. The theme for the expo was "The Age of Discoveries", celebrating the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus reaching the Americas, and over 100 countries were represented. The site of the exposition covered 215 hectares (530 acres) and the total number of visitors was 41,814,571. The exposition ran at the same time as the smaller and shorter-duration Genoa Expo '92, a Specialized Exhibition, held in memory of Christopher Columbus in Genoa.
After the exhibition, the site was divided between the Cartuja Science and Technology Park, which uses many of the pavilions and structures built for the fair, and the grounds where the theme park Isla Mágica and the water park Agua Mágica were later built. Administrative services and city facilities have also moved to some of the buildings and plots left by the fair.
Expo '92 was organised to celebrate the 500th anniversary (1492–1992) of Christopher Columbus reaching the Americas. The exhibition was to be jointly held with the City of Chicago, however, due to national, state, and local funding difficulties, the Chicago 1992 World's Fair was ultimately cancelled.
The Commissioner-General of Expo '92 was Manuel Olivencia.
Important public infrastructures were built for the exhibition. The Madrid–Seville high-speed rail line was built as the first high-speed rail line in Spain, with commercial AVE service by Renfe beginning on 21 April 1992 between Madrid Atocha and the new Seville–Santa Justa stations, with stops in Ciudad Real, Puertollano, Córdoba, and the exhibition site itself. Seville Airport was renovated and expanded and the new Plaza de Armas intercity bus station was inaugurated on 31 March 1992. The SE-30 highway was built as a ring road around Seville, including the Centenario Bridge, and was inaugurated on 15 November 1991. Five more new bridges were built over the Guadalquivir river: Alamillo, Barqueta, Cartuja, Cristo de la Expiración, and Delicias. A whole neighbourhood was developed in Mairena del Aljarafe to house the participants of the fair.
Expo '92 was known for its massive site covering 215 hectares (530 acres) of the Isla de La Cartuja, a place of reference for Columbus for his voyage to the New World, and required at least several days to visit most of the pavilions. It was also known for its numerous spectacular gates and bridges, and the diversity of transport within the expo site from bus to ferry boat, to cable car and monorail. To serve the exhibition, the largest-ever parking lot was built next to it, with capacity for 36,000 cars, 1,410 coaches and 2,578 service vehicles, which was used by four million vehicles during the fair.
The expo also gave an impressive architectural tour of the world, with many countries vying for the position of the most inventive or creative pavilion structure. Outstanding amongst these was the Pavilion of Japan –the world's largest wooden structure–, the Pavilion of Morocco –a re-creation of a Moroccan Palace-Mansion–, and the modernistic cube and sphere of the flagship Pavilion of Spain, to name a few. The most popular pavilions with visitors were those of Spain and Canada.
During the exhibition, the expo site opened its doors at 9:00 am and closed at 4:00 am the following day, with the pavilions open from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm. Each day was dedicated to a different participating country or organization and events related to it were held. There were shows and street entertainment throughout the day. A large parade, entitled The Magic of Time and created by the theatre company Comediants, toured the site at dusk. At 10:30 pm, there was a grand show of light, sound, projections on water screens, and fireworks on the Lake of Spain. After 10:30 pm, except in the international zone which was fenced off, nightclubs opened, restaurants and bars remained open, and there were evening shows, concerts, and film screenings. Visitors could purchase tickets to visit the expo during the whole day, or just for the evening.
The HD-MAC standard, an early analog high-definition television system, was demonstrated at the expo.
Pavilions at the expo consisted of the Royal Pavilion and the five thematic pavilions –the Fifteenth Century, Discoveries, Nature, Navigation, and Plaza del Futuro; the flagship pavilions of Spain and Andalusia at the Lake of Spain; the Spanish Autonomous Regions pavilions all along the Lake of Spain; over a hundred international pavilions; and several corporate pavilions, making it one of the largest ever hosted up to that time.
To offset costs by developing nations, and to allow a first-ever representation by every Latin American nation in an universal exhibition, a permanent monumental structure, the Plaza de América was constructed, a large enclosed plaza-type building in a rustic red colour which also hosted a special Exhibition on the Gold of South America. A Plaza de África was also built to allow maximum participation from developing African countries. For the same reason, several ephemeral pavilions were built to group together the Arab, Baltic, Caribbean, and the South Pacific countries in each one.
Curro was the mascot for the fair. It has the shape of a big white bird with the legs of an elephant, whose long conical beak and crest had the colours of the rainbow. It was created by German designer Heinz Edelmann (who is best known for his work on the 1968 animated film, Yellow Submarine), who also gave it the name Curro, an Andalusian pet form of Spanish male name Francisco.
Curro was revealed on 14 March 1989 in Madrid, and he was officially presented in the Plaza de España of Seville, in a big fest of light and sound on 22 April 1989, three years before the fair's inauguration.
The hot Sevillian summer was largely abated by a microfilter water air conditioning system throughout the site, principally along the main avenues and streets, under canopied sections both of tensile fabric and greenery. Visitors were sprayed with cool mist in various locations, and could make use of the numerous fountains and wading pools to cool off.
The main element of this cooling system was the Bioclimatic Sphere, which sprayed mist to cool visitors and became one of the most recognizable icons of the expo.
At the end of the Universal Exhibition, many pavilions were dismantled or demolished, others were moved to other locations, and others have been maintained and are part of the Cartuja Science and Technology Park (PCT Cartuja). Administrative services and city facilities have also moved to some of the buildings and plots left by the fair. One can walk throughout the site freely, seeing the pavilions and structures that are still standing.
A theme park named Isla Mágica and a water park named Agua Mágica was built in and around Lake of Spain. Initially called Cartuja, El parque de los descubrimientos, the theme park was built on the grounds of the Lake of Spain, and it also used the Pavilion of Spain and some regional pavilions for attractions. The theme park was later redesigned and it reopened as Isla Mágica on 28 June 1997. In 1998, all the regional pavilions still standing, with the exception of the Pavilion of Andalusia, were demolished and the theme park was extended onto the vacated land. On 28 June 2014, the Agua Mágica water park was opened. Admission to the fun parks requires an entrance fee.