Overview

The “International Recognized Exhibition Expo 2008 Zaragoza” took place in Zaragoza, Spain, from June 14 to September 14, 2008. Organized by the company Expoagua Zaragoza 2008, it was a recognized Expo (International Recognized Exhibition) under the International Exhibitions Bureau (Bureau International des Expositions, BIE), with the theme “Water and Sustainable Development.” It coincided with the bicentenary of the First Siege of Zaragoza. The Expo welcomed 104 countries and recorded more than 5.6 million visits.

Origins and the bid

The BIE General Assembly, meeting in Paris, chose Zaragoza on December 16, 2004, over Trieste, Italy, which proposed the theme of the mobility of knowledge, and Thessaloniki, Greece. The BIE recognized the Expo on December 1, 2005, and describes it as the first Expo of its type held under new rules that limited such events to three months and 25 hectares. Spain hoped the Expo would build on the experience of Expo 1992 Seville and attract investment, especially along the Ebro River.

Theme and subthemes

The grounds were organized into eco-geographic zones such as islands, rainforests, oases, ice and snow, mountains and grasslands, and six thematic plazas explored subjects including thirst, clean energy, the governance of river basins and urban water.

“Thirst” (“Sed”), a 1,000-square-meter dome by architect Enric Ruiz-Geli, reproduced the microscopic structure of salt with 82 three-layer ETFE cushions on a metal frame and cooled itself with salt water instead of air conditioning. “Water Cities” (“Ciudades del Agua”), by Italian architect Italo Rota, led visitors up a spiral ramp past examples from five continents, from Venice to Ushuaia. “Shared Water” (“Agua Compartida”) argued for managing river basins across political borders. “Extreme Water” (“Agua Extrema”), a circular building shaped like a wave about to break, ended in a seven-minute simulator of a tsunami, a hurricane and a torrential storm for 150 people at a time. “Oikos, Water and Energy” was an open-air loop in which an Archimedes screw lifted a channel of water 4 meters to make the case for renewable energy.

The Citizen Initiatives Pavilion, known as El Faro and nicknamed the “botijo” after the traditional clay water jug, gave civil society a voice, including views critical of other participants. Architect Ricardo Higueras built it of mud, straw and wood and ran it on renewable energy. Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo, Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua, Intermón Oxfam, the Red Cross and WWF/Adena organized its program with more than 300 organizations.

The site

The 25-hectare site occupied the Meandro de Ranillas (some sources call it the Meandro de la Ranilla), a bend of the Ebro about three kilometers from the Plaza del Pilar in the city center. The master plan for the bend set two goals: to host the Expo and to secure the site’s use afterward, when it was to become a business park. The grounds rose in layers. At river level, an 80,000-square-meter false basement held services and logistics. Four meters above it ran the main avenue, Avenida 2008, lined by the participants’ buildings and by landmarks such as the Aquarium and the pavilions of Spain and Aragon. The participants’ buildings added an upper floor and green roofs with a solar garden covering another 80,000 square meters.

Zaha Hadid designed the Bridge Pavilion, which served as the entrance from the Almozara side of the river and housed thematic exhibits, and Enrique de Teresa designed the droplet-shaped Water Tower, 76 meters high. The River Aquarium, described by the BIE as the largest freshwater aquarium in Europe, held more than 300 species from rivers including the Nile, the Mekong, the Murray-Darling and the Ebro.

Zaragoza’s summer heat shaped the design. Misters, fountains and sheets of water cooled the lines, and two shade structures aimed to lower temperatures by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius. A textile roof 17 meters high and 400 meters long, designed by Félix Escrig and José Sánchez and decorated by Isidro Ferrer with a poem by Zaragoza writer Grassa Toro, cast 5,200 square meters of shade on the main avenue. Steel-mesh pergolas hung with blue and yellow fabric disks, designed by Batlle i Roig, shaded nearly 10,000 square meters near the Ebro Gate and along the riverfront.

Pavilions and international participation

Participants’ exhibits filled modular buildings with a street level, an upper floor and a roof level, home to more than 100 countries, Spain’s autonomous communities and cities, the United Nations, the European Union and sponsoring companies. The three Ronda buildings on the north side were renamed Rain, Wind and Sun. The five Ebro buildings on the south side of the avenue, nicknamed “the peanuts,” took the names of ecosystems: Mountains; Steppes, Prairies and Savannas, with a joint pavilion of sub-Saharan African countries and the Water Tribune upstairs; Temperate Forests and Rainforests, with a joint Latin American pavilion; Islands and Coasts, with a joint Caribbean pavilion; and Oases and Deserts. The Actur building on the east side, renamed Rivers, held Spain’s autonomous communities and cities and corporate exhibits.

National pavilions took their own approaches to water: Germany offered a miniature boat ride, Switzerland let water fall from the ceiling, and Algeria presented the traditional foggara irrigation system.

Culture and entertainment

Bob Dylan performed at the opening ceremony and Philip Glass at the closing, within a program of some 3,400 cultural activities that included Cirque du Soleil’s daily parade, “Awakening of the Serpent.”

Every night at 10:30 p.m. from June 21, “Iceberg,” a 21-minute multimedia show staged on a structure built in the Ebro, warned audiences about climate change. The company Focus produced it under the artistic direction of Calixto Bieito, to music by Zaragoza composer José Luis Romeo, and an estimated 1,180,000 people saw it from riverfront terraces built for 25,000 spectators. In a shell-shaped, 3,000-seat amphitheater by Félix Escrig, the Argentine company Ojalá! gave 360 performances of “Hombre Vertiente,” an aerial theater piece by Pichón Baldinu and Gabriela Baldini, seen by more than 830,000 people. Danish artist Jeppe Hein’s “Appearing Rooms,” a maze of water jets up to 2 meters high, invited visitors to play and cool off, and a 700-meter serpentine bench by Batlle i Roig and Isidro Ferrer lined the southern edge of the grounds, facing the river.

Visitors and services

The Expo was open from 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. Of its more than 5.5 million visitors, 56.7% lived in Zaragoza, 38.8% came from the rest of Spain and 4.5% from abroad. One-day tickets, at 35 euros, were the most common choice. Visitors entered through three gates: the Ebro Gate by the Volunteer Footbridge (38.5% of entries), the Bridge Pavilion gate in the Almozara district (31.3%) and the Water Tower gate (29.8%). River buses ran from the Vadorrey and Club Náutico landings, a half-hour trip that cost 14 euros round trip, though they carried only 0.1% of visits. Blue shops and kiosks across the grounds sold goods made from sustainable materials, many featuring the mascot, Fluvi, and a reusable cup raised money for environmental projects of the United Nations and the Ecodes Foundation.

Legacy

Alongside the exhibition, the Water Tribune brought together scientists, engineers, politicians, business leaders and researchers to debate water management. Its conclusions became the Zaragoza Charter, a set of recommendations for sustainable water management presented after the Expo to the Government of Spain, the BIE and the United Nations Secretary-General. The papers, presentations, videos and photographs of its 93 days of sessions are gathered in the Blue Box (“Caja Azul”).

As planned, most of the Expo itself disappeared after closing. According to the city, the participants’ buildings were converted after September 2008 into the Dinamiza business park: their facades and temporary fittings were demolished, but the structures and roofs were kept and two floors were inserted in each, creating more than 150,000 square meters of offices and shops, while the logistics basement became a parking garage for 2,500 cars. The thematic plazas, shops, pergolas, textile roof and “Iceberg” were dismantled. Only one thematic plaza building found a second life: “Thirst” was rebuilt in Valladolid in 2011 as the multipurpose Cúpula del Milenio.

The Expo left a lasting mark on the city. Zaragoza became the first Spanish city to host the office of a United Nations program, the UN International Decade for Action “Water for Life” 2005-2015. The Expo also drove the transformation of the Ebro riverfront and the modernization of the city center, with new bridges such as the Third Millennium Bridge and the Volunteer Footbridge, the completion of the city’s ring roads, improved roads and a public bicycle system that remains in use. Expo 2008 Zaragoza placed water on the Expo agenda and reshaped the city’s relationship with the Ebro.