Overview

“Expo 2000 Hannover” took place in Hannover, Germany, from June 1 to October 31, 2000. Organized by Expo 2000 Hannover GmbH, it was a universal exhibition under the second categorization system of the International Exhibitions Bureau (Bureau International des Expositions, BIE). Its theme was “Humankind, Nature, Technology.” The Expo occupied 160 hectares and recorded about 18 million visits.

Origins and the bid

The member states of the BIE chose Germany as host at the 107th General Assembly in June 1990, a few months before German reunification. Hannover’s only rival was Toronto, and the decision could hardly have been closer: Hannover won by a single vote. Support at home was also narrow. In a 1992 referendum, with a turnout of 61.7%, 51.5% of Hannover’s voters approved the Expo and 48.5% opposed it.

Theme and subthemes

Germany invited the world to present visions of a future society that would balance people, nature and technology. The theme drew on Agenda 21, the action plan adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and was divided into subthemes that included environment, energy, mobility, knowledge, information, health and nutrition. A Thematic Park at the heart of the site presented possible solutions in fields such as knowledge, basic needs, health and energy. Through the “Projects Around the World” initiative, an international jury selected exemplary projects, which were presented in the Global House, while the Global Dialogue brought together partners from different countries before, during and after the Expo.

The site

Sustainability shaped the site. In June 1994 the BIE General Assembly had resolved that organizers must plan for the reuse of Expo sites and infrastructure, and Hannover followed strict guidelines known as the Hannover Principles. Most of the grounds were developed from the existing Hannover Messe exhibition grounds, and new land on the Kronsberg hill was planned together with a residential eco-district of low-energy and passive houses. Federal and state governments invested more than four billion marks in the region’s transport network, adding tram, metro and railway connections and upgrading roads, the main station and the airport.

The Expo also had a link with Expo 1998 Lisbon. Parque Expo, the company that built that Expo and its new district, went on to sell its planning experience to cities and to later Expos. According to urban design scholar Patricia Simões Aelbrecht, its role in Hannover was minor: it influenced only the financial model, which in Lisbon had been meant to repay the investment through sales of land and pavilions, and it built the Portugal Pavilion. She contrasts Hannover with Expo 2010 Shanghai, which in her view followed Lisbon’s planning model much more closely.

Pavilions and international participation

About 155 countries took part in the Expo’s thematic exchanges. Several national pavilions became landmarks of contemporary architecture. Peter Zumthor designed the Swiss Pavilion from some 45,000 planks of unseasoned timber, assembled without glue. Shigeru Ban designed the Japan Pavilion using paper tubes made from recycled German paper. The Netherlands Pavilion by MVRDV stacked a tulip field, a forest, sand dunes and wind turbines in a 40-meter structure that generated its own electricity and recycled its water.

Mexico’s pavilion offered one of the Expo’s most elaborate media installations. Its centerpiece, “Soul of Mexico,” created by the Belgian firm de pinxi, was an immersive 3D film of the Night of the Dead on the island of Janitzio in Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Cameras had recorded P’urhépecha women in the island’s cemetery on November 1, 1999, and visitors wearing lightweight polarizing glasses watched them kneel, pray and lay flowers and food on graves by candlelight, in what the pavilion’s website called a “living diorama.” A press release presented Mexico as “a modern country with very ancient roots.”

Performance scholar Ruth Hellier-Tinoco reads the installation critically. In her view it continued a past, present and future formula that had framed Mexico’s displays at Expos for more than a century, echoing the Aztec palace Mexico built for Expo 1889 Paris. The women of Janitzio were presented as authentic specimens of an untouched, preindustrial people, while the tens of thousands of tourists who actually crowd the cemetery each year were left out of the frame. The result, she argues, was not a copy of reality but a hyperreality that promised a purer experience of otherness and turned an Indigenous practice into an asset of national tourism promotion.

Culture and entertainment

The cultural program, “Where Worlds Meet,” extended across the Expo site, the city and the surrounding region. Highlights included Peter Stein’s uncut, 21-hour staging of Goethe’s “Faust,” and performances by Pina Bausch, Luciano Pavarotti, Santana, Compay Segundo and Joaquín Cortés. Each evening before closing, a light and sound show called Flambée played over the Expo lake. The mascot, Twipsy, designed by Javier Mariscal, also starred in a 52-episode animated series broadcast in 90 countries.

Visitors and services

Attendance fell far short of expectations. Organizers had planned for about 40 million visitors, and the shortfall left a deficit of about 2.4 billion marks for the German public budget. Critics also questioned the Thematic Park’s reliance on spectacle and corporate sponsors, as well as the Expo’s overall environmental balance for the region.

Legacy

The Expo’s physical legacy proved more lasting. The Kronsberg district became a reference for ecological housing, social mix and landscape design, and new facilities, including an arena, remained in use. Several pavilions found second lives: Mexico’s became a library for a university in Braunschweig, Ethiopia’s returned to Ethiopia, and Belgium’s became a recording studio. The BIE also identifies the Global House as the forerunner of the best practices areas presented at later Expos, beginning with Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Expo 2000 Hannover placed sustainable development at the center of its theme, its site and its programs. Despite its financial difficulties, it helped change what organizers and the BIE expect an Expo to address and to leave behind.