Independent · Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the BIE, Expo 2030 Riyadh Company, any government, or any company named in our coverage.
Weekly readings on the history of World Expos — the ideas, buildings, and legacies that shaped 173 years of universal exhibitions. A new piece each Wednesday.
Eleven years after the Great Exhibition of 1851, London staged the International Exhibition of 1862 — opened five months after Prince Albert's death and under the shadow of the American Civil War. It drew 6.1 million visitors across 39 participating countries, introduced Japanese design to British audiences (informally), and showcased the Bessemer steel process, Parkesine plastic, and part of Babbage's analytical engine — but was housed in a building critics disliked and Parliament refused to buy after closing.
Read the piece →Four years after London's Great Exhibition, France staged its own answer on the Champs-Élysées — Napoleon III's state-directed 1855 exposition that set a template for state-led organisation and art-with-industry programming still visible in Riyadh's 2030 edition.
Read the piece →The BIE now lists the 1851 Hyde Park exhibition as Expo 1851 London, first entry in its numbered register. What Paxton's Crystal Palace looked like, how the exhibits were judged, and what became of the building and its £186,000 surplus.
Read the piece →How the Great Exhibition of 1851, staged in London's Hyde Park, invented the World Expo and set the pattern every subsequent Expo, including Expo 2030, still follows.
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