The way the 1970 Expo represents its time
Personally, I am a big fan of the "space age" design of the late sixties / early seventies. Stanley Kubrick's visionary movies "2001" and "Clockwork Orange" and the designs and drawings of Syd Mead are my prime idols of this era. Also, in terms of graphic and typographic design, the seventies had a very distinct theme - straight and functional forms, strong colors, minimalistic composition. You can see a few examples of this on this web page which features pavilion brochures and other material from the 1970 Expo. This got me thinking that maybe I should start collecting pavilion pamphlets here and scan them, because in a few decades they might be very insightful about the contemporary design of now - then you will say "Oh man look at this layout, this is so 2000ish" or whatever people will say then, just as we now say "this is so 80ies". As always, design characteristics of different eras can only be determined in retrospect.
I find myself pretty fascinated about what was going on back then - in a few years, will people look back at the Aichi Expo and feel the same way? Whether or not that is the case, our 2005 Expo will still give people an image about the issues various governments and people had on their minds in the early 2000s - just as we can use the 1970 Expo as a mirror reflecting our view on the past.
Whew, that feels quite good, writing about something nice on these pages for a change. Now that we have less than two months left, I hope that I will find the spirit to stop complaining constantly and find some more positive topics. Anyway, if you liked this time trip into the year 1970 - which I hope, because I put a lot of time in it researching and composing - you might be looking forward to my upcoming EXPO 2000 entry.
· Reference: Some images were taken from Minami Nakawada's 2005 "EXPO '70" photo collection (Diamond Co., Tokyo