Before art school, my vision and experience had mostly been limited to things that had happened to my family or in my neighbourhood. But throughout my first year at Emily Carr, I enjoyed meeting and watching classmates from across Canada and the world, and reflecting on how relatively narrow my experience was. There were valuable things you were taught in class, but often the things that you learned outside in the hallways and in free moments could be just as valuable.
Having a world’s fair on your doorstep was an unimaginable promise and a surrealistic reality. The only comparable idea I could conjure was of going to the Pacific National Exhibition a few times. It was the PNE, but a hundred times bigger in scope. To the municipal, provincial, and federal governments, this was like Vancouver’s (and BC’s) splashy coming out party.
The idealistic promise of Expo 86 was that the city would kind of throw open its doors to invite the world to visit. The idea for holding a world’s fair in Vancouver had started back in the late 1970s, and was fostered later in the early 80s by BC’s Socred government. For years before 1986, tourism businesses in Vancouver had been preparing and positioning themselves for some kind of new gold rush. Even the little pedicab company I’d worked for in the summers before I enrolled at ECCAD had been formed partly on the promises of an Expo 86 tourism boom.
The downtown core of Vancouver was the largest development recipient in the years leading up to 1986: BC Place Stadium, Science World, and the Roundhouse Community Centre all transformed the False Creek shoreline from its heavy industry past into a modern tourist zone. Canada Place and the SkyTrain line changed the Burrard Inlet waterfront, and connected it to East Vancouver.
Throughout my Foundation year, I could look out the windows of the ECCAD cafeteria from Granville Island across to the north side of False Creek, and see the construction going on. The rythmic pounding of pilings into the soft earth across the water seemed constant, like a violent little countdown towards opening day of our world fair.
Expo was an example of how art and design was connected to industry and the business of urban development – not off in a vacuum somewhere. Around me, I began to be able to see mental lines of force connecting money, science, and modern tech with creative design and visual communication. ECCAD Instructors consulted on urban development of the expo site, and the most effective use of colour, signs, and symbols for an international audience.
Throughout the breathless media reports of the Expo site’s preparations, there were also stories about the eviction and relocation of many low-income people who lived downtown. It was as if the project developer’s need to impress and to present a pretty face for investors trumped any realities of the struggling class, particularly in the downtown east-side and false creek neighborhoods. Politicians, marketers, and business people who’d never been in an SRO were making abstract money or ego-oriented decisions which materially jeopardized low-income residents in the downtown core. This has been the shape of Vancouver urban development ever since. People will tell you that the developers are really the ones who run this city.
After the fair, the sale of the entire Expo site to a Hong Kong investor was controversial. Real estate developers made a lot of money in the decades to follow, and the False Creek waterfront became some of the most valuable and coveted real estate in North America.
For me, I experienced Expo in a personal way. My girlfriend (my amazing Grace) was working at Expo and told me she could get me into Expo for free. I don’t know if I could have afforded the gate entry, but she assured me that I needn’t worry about it.
So one beautiful summer day, Grace drove us to the employee parking lot and we climbed onto a little employee shuttle bus. The driver said “you’ve both got your employee passes, right?” and Grace said “yup” and shot me a glance that said “don’t say a word”. In a few moments, we hopped off at a spot behind a covered fence, went through a gate, and boom, we were inThe Purple Zone. Expo – for free!
It was an amazing, colourful fair to say the least, made just a little sweeter by my illicit entry! We had a wonderful day, screaming on the rollercoaster, touring exhibits in pavillions from so many different provinces and countries, and eating, eating, eating. I remember loving a Moose Burger at the Alberta Pavillion in particular. The whole day was an exciting jumble of colour, noise, music, and crowds, like being at the PNE, but a hundred times bigger.
After the Party was over
I’ve never been known to enjoy myself without a tinge of guilt (part of my DNA, I guess), and sure enough, Vancouver experienced a post-Expo hangover. Once our six month Hollywood North Disneyland event had finished in October, the infatuation gave way to the realities of the aftermath. The party mess had to be cleaned up, the bills had to be paid, and the social costs made apparent and accounted for. All levels of government had told the world (and in particular, the Pacific Rim) that Vancouver and British Columbia were open for business, more than ever. It was the tipping-point into a “new era” of real-estate development in Vancouver, and a widening of the gap in both money and power between the upper and lower economic classes. Ever since, the city and province have been benefitting from that coming out party and trying to recover from its consequences.
Afterward, the sale of the entire Expo site to a Hong Kong investor was controversial, and the land would become some of the most valuable and coveted real estate in North America.
Later, when I rode SkyTrain downtown everyday on my way to school, I’d see tons of soil piled up under the Dunsmuir viaduct. It was industrial waste product, removed so that parts of False Creek could be developed from a fairground into high-rise residences. That dirt sat there piled up for a decade.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/expo-86-looking-back-architectural-legacy-1.3557845
https://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/05/04/ExpoSchmexpo/
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-archive/news/how-expo-86-changed-vancouver-3031743
