https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0403-6890
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ABSTRACT
International expositions (expos) are significant to the history of urban planning. Analysis of post-event urban spaces can provide valuable insights into the study of spatial planning, parks planning, and heritage conservation. Case studies, conducted at two former expo sites in the US and Australia focus on the role of retention, reuse, heritage, and parks conservation as forces shaping urban spaces over time. The first case at the site of Hemisfair ‘68, in San Antonio, Texas, traces the role of urban renewal and conservation in the history of the site. In contemporary planning efforts, modernist pavilions from Hemisfair ‘68 join nineteenth century buildings as remnants of history that raise questions for the area envisioned as a New Urbanist neighbourhood. The second case study, a former industrial district was cleared and a working-class precinct transformed for Expo 88, in Brisbane, Queensland. The site was later redeveloped into the South Bank Parklands. Over time, South Bank evolved through redevelopment and master planning, public outcry, and instances of conservation in and around the expo site. Common to both cases is the conservation of parks, iconic and ordinary buildings, and public art, which are the outcome of individual and collective actions to shape urban landscapes.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the people who generously gave their time to be interviewed or otherwise assisted with the research project, including Boyd Andrews, Andres Andujar, Sallyanne Atkinson, Bonnie Ayer, Debra Beattie, Jennifer Clark, Stuart Johnson, Anne Krause, John McGregor, Peter Rasey, Wendy Rogers, Rudi Rodriguez, Sherry Wagner, among unnamed, but still greatly appreciated, others. Many thanks to the research assistance of Nathan Revor, Eden Marek, Lucas Bulger, Corey Mann, and Ingrid Yingge Shen.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Jennifer Minner is an Assistant Professor in City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.
Martin Abbott is a PhD student in Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.
Notes
1 Gold and Gold, Cities of Culture; Roche, Mega-events and Social Change.
2 Anderson, “Visitors’ Long-term Memories,” 401–20; Anderson and Shimizu, “Recollections of Expo 70,” 435–54.
3 Abbott and Minner, “Narratives of Retention,” 1–18; Minner, “Framing Lost Utopias,” 14–15; Minner, “Assembly and Care of Memory,” n.p.
4 Roche, Mega-events and Social Change, 15.
5 Ibid., 15–16.
6 Ibid., 115–48, 180–215.
7 González, Designing Pan-America, 184; Ryan, We’ll Show the World, [Kindle Location], 1315.
8 Abbott and Minner, “Narratives of Retention,” 1–18.
9 Bureau International des Expositions, Expo Cities - Urban Change, 7.
10 Caramellino et al., “Reconceptualizing Mega Events,” 617.
11 Gold and Gold, Cities of Culture, 10.
12 Ibid., 11.
13 Roche, Mega-events and Social Change, 200.
14 Minner and Chusid, “Time, Architecture, and Geography,” 49–58.
15 Yadollahi, “Prospects of Applying Assemblage,” 357.
16 Koziol, Valorizing Heritage, 15.
17 Costonis, Icons and Aliens, xvi.
18 Minner, Landscapes of Thrift, 5–6.
19 González, Designing Pan-America, 151.
20 George, O’Neil Ford, Architect, 180.
21 According to some sources, 24 buildings were saved. However, that includes the complete reconstruction of two buildings that were demolished.
22 San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation, “HemisFair ’68.” Huddleston, “HemisFair ’68 transformed the city,” n.p. Business Week, “This World’s Fair has a Long Future,” 67, 71.
23 Duane, “Hemisfair ’68.”
24 Huxtable, “Remember the Alamo,” 50; Fisher, Saving San Antonio, 316.
25 That is 190 m if one does not count the antenna at the top of the structure. The Tower is also described as 750 feet tall or 229 m when the antenna is included in the calculation.
26 There were many other temporary structures constructed for the fair. Most of those have since been demolished. A few ruins remain on the site today, including the pavilions for Kodak and Gulf Insurance.
27 Krause, Unpublished interview.
28 The Hemisfair Conservancy was established a few years later to channel philanthropic funds to improve the area, which had been renamed yet again as ‘Hemisfair,’ with ‘Park’ removed from its official name.
29 The creation of ‘Civic Park’ involved demolition of most of the Convention Centre, which had been built for the fair and rebuilding convention centre space on the north-eastern portion of the site.
30 Minner, “Tours of Critical Geography.”
31 Wolfe, Correspondence to Amy E. Dase, 1–2.
32 Webner, “Institute of Texan Cultures.”
33 Krause, unpublished interview.
34 For example, Serna. “Concerned Over Hotel.”
35 Ganis et al., “The Evolution of a Masterplan,” 501–2.
36 Hall and Hodges, “The Party’s Great,” 13–20.
37 Ganis et al., “The Evolution of a Masterplan,” 503; Foundation Expo 88, “Quotable Quotes.”
38 Centre on Fair Housing Rights and Evictions, Fair Play for Housing Rights, 24.
39 Brien, “Celebration or Manufacturing,” 75. In addition, a local newspaper reported that Aboriginal protesters led a march along city streets to Musgrave Park at the opening of Expo 88 demonstrating for land rights. Dewhurst, “Queen Elizabeth Opens Expo 88.”
40 Ganis et al., “The Evolution of a Masterplan,” 503.
41 Bennett, “The Shaping of Things to Come: Expo ’88,” 47.
42 Ibid., 504.
43 Beanland, Brisbane, 111.
44 Ibid., 113.
45 Hinchliffe, “to: Ian Lincoln,” 2.
46 David Hinchliffe, “Re: Nepalese Pagoda and Sir Edmund Hillary,” 1.
47 Foundation Expo 88, “Short David Hinchcliffe Statement.” Frank Pitt states in this YouTube video:
When you’ve got something that is unusual and an icon, you grab it with both hands. You hang onto it … So we did that … And I said, to Myra - she doesn’t always agree with me - I said, ‘did you hear that on the TV?’ She says, ‘yeah.’ I said, ‘why don’t we put the money in?’ And she said, ‘yes,’ just like that (laughing and smiling). It shocked me!
48 The two-story brick building was built c. 1889 in a Federation Filigree style and wrapped with verandas.
49 There are also two other heritage listed buildings in the South Bank area verandas that serve a similar function as pub -- Ship Inn and Plough Inn. Collins Place is the only one of the three that has been so wholly subsumed within a larger, mixed use development today.
50 Hinchliffe and Begley, “Up in the air.”
51 Anthony John Group, “About.”
52 Anthony John Group, “Southpoint - Historic Collins Place.”
53 Rooney, “Stefan’s Expo 88.”
54 Foundation Expo 88, “Night Companion Notes.”
55 In the Brisbane City Council heritage register it is described as:
one of the surviving sculptures that were commissioned specifically for Expo 88 in Brisbane … this particular sculpture, by its very size, became an identifiable symbol of Expo 88. It also remembered for its integral part in the Expo fireworks spectacular, where the Skyneedle dominated the night sky over Brisbane.
56 Pradella, “Where Life Shines.”
57 Brisbane Development, “Vision for Brisbane”; Bochenski, “Cultural precinct.”
58 Queensland Heritage Council, “State heritage listing.”
59 Anderson, “Visitors’ Long-term Memories,” 401–20; Anderson and Shimizu, “Visitors’ Long-term Memories,” 435–54.
60 Brand, How Buildings Learn.
61 For an explanation of Actor Network Theory see Latour, Reassembling the Social. For further discussion of applications of assemblage thinking relevant to preservation debates see Yadollahi, “Prospects of Applying Assemblage,” 355–71.