State pavilions at international expositions allow countries to encapsulate their national
character and capacity within the framework of the expo theme. Curiously, the Australian
pavilion at the 1970 Japan World Exposition, Osaka, referenced historical Japanese
culture and wisdom traditions. These allusions, however, are more self-referential than at
first appearance, representing a forward-looking statement on Australia's changing place
in the world.1
Japan became Australia’s main trading partner in 1966, underscoring the
erosion of Australia’s historical ties with Britain, then involved in a protracted campaign to
join the European Economic Community.2
Although economics and trade dominated
Australia and Japans’ post-war relationship, the two countries’ international and regional
political interests also increasingly converged. Eager to build on this commonality, the
Australian Government approached Expo ’70 as an important exercise in cultural
diplomacy, which allowed Australia to represent itself as something other than a
combined farm and mine to the exposition’s large Japanese audience (Figure 1). The
design of the Australian Pavilion harnessed multiple threads of meaning to this task,
resulting in a hybrid architecture that most commentators have represented as failed.3
The burgeoning relationship with Japan certainly tested Australia’s self-perceptions. The
Expo ’70 pavilion traded Australia’s historical identity for a new composite representation
reflecting its shifting external circumstances, the amalgamation of symbols of modernity
with references to Japanese culture constituting an intriguing speculation on Australia’s
future integration in the Asia Pacific region.
century.