Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan, a memorable success hard to match

The event has long held the world attendance record for a universal exhibition: 64,2 million entries, a number only surpassed in 2010 by that of Shanghai (73 million).

Expo 2025 is counting on 28,2 million entries: an objective that pales in comparison to Expo 70, but nevertheless higher than the attendance of Expo 2020 in Dubai (24,1 million).

"For the Japanese, the most memorable event of post-war Japan was Expo 70," Shinya Hashizume, an Osaka academic specializing in the history of architecture and of town planning, author of numerous works on his hometown.

“Six extraordinary months”

It was a time when Japan, a defeated country in World War II, was turning the page on this dark period with its "economic miracle", and symbolically marking its return to the international community by hosting major events, such as the Olympic Games. Tokyo Summer Festival in 1964.

“These six months were extraordinary for Osaka (...). The whole city was a party,” Mr. Hashizume remembers with emotion.

Aged ten at the time, he had gone to Expo 18 70 times, fascinated to discover the "whole world" and "a future that looked like science fiction", with its front pavilions. -keepers with colorful colors and innovations galore.

Visitors discovered giant screens (the first film in IMAX format was shown there), tested the first mobile phones and "videophones", and could admire rocks brought back from the Moon, on display in the United States pavilion.

The enormous popular success of Expo 70 can also be explained by the fact that very few Japanese traveled abroad at the time, although they were eager to discover it.

“Japanese people met foreigners for the first time in their lives at Expo 70. Some even ran after them to ask for autographs,” relates Jun Takashina, deputy secretary general of Expo 2025.

“Everything was new, and that’s why it was so exciting” for the Japanese public, at a time when the internet did not exist, he summarizes.

References in manga

The Expo 70 site in northern Osaka has become a green park. You can still visit its most emblematic monument, the "Tour du Soleil", which remains a very popular photo spot.

70 m high, this curious cosmic creation by Japanese artist Taro Okamoto (1911-1996) has also been the subject of appearances or winks in various manga including "Naruto" and "20th Century Boys", as well as in the Pokémon universe.

The memorial park also hosts an Expo museum, with a retro-futuristic atmosphere, whose interior installations Mr. Hashizume supervised.

The structures of the new Expo, built on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, must however be dismantled after the event (April 13-October 13, 2025), with local authorities planning to eventually build a gigantic complex there. tourist with a casino.

Mr. Hashizume, who also plays an advisory role in preparations for Expo 2025, hopes that the Japanese media will talk about it "positively" once it begins. And that Japan will become fully aware of its role as “host” of this festive global event, focused on sustainable development.