Modern exposition fairgrounds: visions of the future / legacies of the past

World Expositions form thin, but impactful, layers in the palimpsests of the sites on which they are held. Typically, most of the pavilions built for these events are designed to be transient with their grandeur remaining as fleeting memories. However, like military battles and other historic events, expositions can have significant future influences on a place, including shaping the psychogeography, spirit, and use of the locale in ways that range from the symbolic, with the event imprinted on both local and international collective memories, to the physical, with remains of structures and landscape elements visible for years. While some former fairgrounds became desolate and underutilized areas, scattered with remnants in various states of use and decay for decades, the sites of both Kazakhstan's Expo 2017 and Dubai's Expo 2020 immediately began to be transformed into active districts. While international expositions have many ties to other global mega events, such as Olympic Games and World Cups, this essay primarily focuses on the post-event conditions of late twentieth and early twenty-first century expositions. Many of these events, which projected themes revolving around sustainability, serve as vivid illustrations of a disconnect between their thematic focuses and the often-dystopic realities left behind.