Overview

“Lisboa Expo’98” took place on the eastern riverfront of Lisbon, Portugal, from May 22 to September 30, 1998. Organized by Parque Expo 98 SA, it was a specialized exhibition under the second categorization system of the International Exhibitions Bureau (Bureau International des Expositions, BIE), with the theme “Oceans, Heritage for the Future.” It commemorated the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama’s arrival in India and coincided with the International Year of the Ocean proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly. The Expo welcomed 146 countries and 14 international organizations and recorded 10,128,204 visits.

Origins and the bid

The idea for the Expo emerged in 1989 within the Commission for the Commemoration of the Portuguese Discoveries, as part of the program marking Vasco da Gama’s first sea voyage to India in 1498 and Pedro Álvares Cabral’s arrival in Brazil in 1500. On June 23, 1992, Lisbon was chosen as host over a competing bid from Toronto, and the BIE General Assembly recognized the Expo on June 8, 1994. The public company Parque Expo 98, created in 1993, was put in charge of both the exhibition and the regeneration of its district.

The Expo also became a centerpiece of city planning. Lisbon had lost almost a fifth of its residents in a decade, falling from 807,900 in 1981 to 663,400 in 1991, and the Strategic Plan for Lisbon, approved in June 1992 under Mayor Jorge Sampaio, set out to win them back and to make Lisbon the “Atlantic capital of Europe.” The plan counted the Expo among its major projects, alongside Lisbon’s year as European City of Culture in 1994 and the new crossing of the Tagus, as a chance to integrate the city’s neglected eastern side with its center and waterfront and to build facilities for technological research.

Theme and subthemes

The organizers wanted the theme to reach beyond the historical commemoration. Oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. The theme was developed through four subthemes: knowledge of the seas and ocean resources, the oceans and the planet’s equilibrium, the oceans and leisure, and the oceans as a source of artistic inspiration. According to the organizer, the theme was present in every part of the grounds, and water was the Expo’s key element. The BIE notes that the Independent World Commission on the Oceans presented its final report at the Portugal Pavilion.

The site and its gates

Organizers chose a run-down industrial zone in eastern Lisbon at the end of 1990, in the Cabo Ruivo-Beirolas area of the city’s riverside zone, where the plan also placed a new home for the Lisbon International Fair (FIL). Planners called the Expo the catalyst for the largest urban regeneration program ever carried out in Portugal, on a site five minutes from the airport, with direct motorway access and a new station served by international trains, the metro, buses, trams and taxis. Preparing it meant decontaminating soil, cleaning the Trancão River and removing a slaughterhouse, refinery fuel depots and an area of precarious housing. Parque Expo 98 led a regeneration program covering about 340 hectares and some five kilometers of riverfront, of which roughly 70 hectares formed the exhibition grounds. Public works included the Vasco da Gama Bridge across the Tagus, which opened on March 29, 1998, and the Gare do Oriente station by Santiago Calatrava.

The fenced grounds stretched about 2 kilometers along the river and had four public gates: the North Gate by Manuel Tainha, the Sea Gate by Manuel Graça Dias and Egas José Vieira, the Sun Gate by Daciano Costa and the Tagus Gate by Lívia Tirone. Almost half of all visits came in through the Sun Gate. The gates opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 3 a.m., or at 5 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from the second month on. A free shuttle ran continuously between the Sea, Sun and North gates, and parking offered 13,300 spaces for cars and motor homes, 743 for buses, 1,043 for motorcycles and 65 for visitors with disabilities.

Pavilions and international participation

The Oceans Pavilion, designed by Peter Chermayeff, was the largest aquarium in Europe when it opened, with about 200 marine species. Álvaro Siza Vieira designed the Portugal Pavilion with its thin canopy, which won that year’s Valmor Prize. Other landmarks included the Knowledge of the Seas Pavilion, the Future Pavilion, the Virtual Reality Pavilion with its “Oceânia” experience, the Utopia Pavilion by Regino Cruz, the Nautical Exhibition, the Water Gardens, the Garcia de Orta Gardens and the 145-meter Vasco da Gama Tower, linked to the nautical exhibition by a cable car.

The grounds were divided into areas for official participants: International North, International South, International Organizations, and National Organizations and Companies. Official participants occupied 224 exhibition modules with more than 72,500 square meters of covered space, not counting the Portugal and European Union pavilions, and the organizer charged no rent for the pavilions. It called the Expo the most international exhibition held up to that time. National organizations included the Azores, Madeira, the Portuguese Communities and the trade agency ICEP, and among the corporate exhibits, Microsoft showed Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester.

Culture and entertainment

The cultural program counted 1,890 different temporary shows in 4,877 performances on 17 stages, and the three permanent shows drew 8.7 million spectators in 1,908 performances. The multimedia show “Acqua Matrix” played on the Olivais Dock, using the water and the Oceanário as its setting, and the parade “Peregrinação” brought together 11 large machines, 19 smaller vehicles and 333 performers. The main stage at Sony Plaza held 235 sessions for about 2.3 million spectators, and the Promenade stage hosted a Portuguese guitar festival every Thursday at midnight. The street theater company Royal de Luxe built a “Rhinocéros” for the Expo.

The Luís de Camões Theater, designed by Manuel Salgado and Marino Fei, hosted opera and national day performances in 82 sessions. The BIE also mentions two side festivals, the 100 Days Festival and the Dive into the Future festival. Official guests included 38 heads of state and 35 prime ministers or deputy prime ministers.

Visitors and services

Two years before opening, organizers expected 10 million visitors, mainly from Spain and Portugal. The four gates counted 10,128,204 visits. The organizer’s introduction rounds the figure to about 11 million visitors, and the BIE reports more than 10 million. Social groups accounted for 318,750 visitors, 252,471 of them in school groups under an agreement with the Ministry of Education.

Information desks answered 1,982,589 requests, an average of 15,019 a day, 61 percent of them from Portuguese visitors. Medical teams assisted 43,705 people, staff handled 3,479 cases of lost persons, 2,044 of them children, and the lost-and-found service received 24,699 reports. A volunteer program chose 1,266 volunteers from 14,000 applicants for 14 tasks, in groups that served five weeks each between May 15 and September 30. The Children’s Space, a paid service opened on June 10, 1998, welcomed 7,066 children aged 3 to 10. Visitors with disabilities could borrow one of 80 wheelchairs, all of them in constant use, and use Braille materials, audio recordings and sign language interpreters on request.

Mascot, logo and media

The official mascot, Gil, was created by painter António Modesto and sculptor Artur Moreira and chosen from 309 designs. Its name, proposed by a primary school student in Barrancos and selected from 765 suggestions, recalls Gil Eanes, the navigator who rounded Cape Bojador in 1434. Augusto Tavares Dias designed the logo, which symbolizes the sea and the sun, after winning a 1993 competition with 1,288 entries, and Nuno Rebelo composed the official music, “Pangea.”

According to the organizer, it was the first international exhibition covered by its own television channel, radio station, daily newspaper and news agency. TeleEXPO broadcast 1,612 hours, 370 of them on RTP2; the Expo’s radio produced 1,304 hours for Portugal and 1,015 for the rest of the world; the EXPO news agency issued 4,105 stories; and the daily “Diário da EXPO” printed 17.1 million copies over the 132 days. Accreditation requests came from 6,312 foreign journalists from 88 countries and 5,204 Portuguese journalists.

Publications

The organizer’s publications included the “Guia Oficial” (Official Guide), edited by Rui Cardoso and released in May 1998 in Portuguese, English, Spanish and French editions, and a youth guide by António Torrado. Each thematic pavilion had its own catalog: Utopia, Portugal, Knowledge of the Seas, Future and Oceans. Book series included “98 Mares,” with 98 volumes, “De A a Z,” “Exposições Universais” and “Monografias do Pavilhão do Futuro.” In September 1998 the organizer added “Memória da Exposição” (Record of the Exposition), “O Livro Verde da EXPO’98” (The Green Book) and “Espectáculos Permanentes” (Permanent Shows).

Legacy

After the Expo, the site became Parque das Nações, a mixed-use district of housing, offices, shops and attractions that is now home to more than 28,000 residents. The Oceans Pavilion continues as the Oceanário, the Utopia Pavilion became today’s Altice Arena, which hosted the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest, the Future Pavilion became the Lisbon casino, and the Portugal Pavilion is now used by the University of Lisbon. The North International Area gave way to the new halls of the Lisbon International Fair (FIL), and the Sun Gate became the Vasco da Gama shopping center.

Total costs through the end of 1998 reached about 421 million contos, roughly €2.1 billion, according to a 2000 report of Portugal’s Court of Auditors. A survey by Portugal’s Ministry for Equipment and Planning, cited by the BIE, suggested that 1.2 percent of the country’s GDP and 0.6 percent of its employment in 1998 may have been attributable to the Expo. Planners had named reuniting the city center with its waterfront as the main goal of the regeneration, and the BIE notes that it became a model for urban programs elsewhere in Portugal. Expo 1998 Lisbon turned an abandoned industrial waterfront into a new city center and kept the oceans at the heart of its legacy.