Expo 67 legacy: How Montréal’s World’s Fair transformed a city
The most successful World’s Fair of the 20th century, Expo 67, was held in Montréal from April 28 to October 29, 1967, to celebrate Canada’s centennial. The International and Universal Exposition welcomed more than 50 million visitors. Shaped by its theme “Man and His World”, Expo 67 introduced futuristic architecture like Habitat 67 and Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, and permanently changed the city’s infrastructure, culture, and global image.
Record-breaking attendance
The exhibition site on Île-Notre-Dame and Île Ste-Hélène was designed to accommodate 26 million individual visits over a 183-day period. Canada’s population at the time was an estimated 20,334,000. Incredibly, Expo 67 recorded 50,306,648 paid admissions from April 28 to October 29, 1967, not counting an additional 5 million admissions by performers, the press, official visitors and employees.
Celebrities and dignitaries at Expo 67
Tourists came to Montréal from all over the world to visit Expo 67. Celebrities and dignitaries who attended include Queen Elizabeth II, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, General Charles de Gaulle, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Robert Kennedy.
Such cultural icons as Marlene Dietrich, Harry Belafonte, Sir Laurence Olivier, and Ed Sullivan also visited or broadcast from the fairgrounds, turning Montréal into the world’s cultural capital for six months.
Iconic design and technology: The Alfa Romeo Montreal
During Expo 67 visitors fell in love with the classic Alfa Romeo Montreal concept car specially designed by coach builders Bertone for Milan-based Alfa Romeo, the only car manufacturer invited to exhibit at Expo 67, in a section called “Man the Producer.”
The public took to calling the sports car “The Montreal” and it was such a big hit at Expo 67 that Alfa Romeo built some 3,900 exclusive production models between 1970 and 1977, and a Grand Touring version that competed in GT racing, including the Tour de France. Today, the original Alfa Romeo Montreal from Expo 67 is on display in the Alfa Romeo Historical Museum in Arese, Italy.
Pavilions that endure
Expo 67 was a Bureau International des Expositions-sanctioned “first category” world exhibition, the first to be held in North America. The 62 participating nations either built their own pavilions or combined with other nations in regional pavilions. Some of these pavilions live on:
- The United States spent more than $9 million on visionary Buckminster Fuller’s United States pavilion which popularized the geodesic dome. Fuller’s iconic geodesic dome today houses the Biosphère environmental museum that is part of Espace pour la vie, the largest natural sciences museum complex in Canada.
- The French Pavilion has been transformed into Canada’s largest casino, the Casino de Montréal which offers fine dining and entertainment options for all tastes and budgets.
- The Canadian Pavilion is now La Toundra Hall and hosts cultural events and private gatherings.
- The Jamaican Pavilion has been transformed into a multi-purpose conference and entertainment venue.
- Built for Expo 67, La Ronde remains one of the largest amusement parks in Eastern Canada.
Expo 67, is the reason why the world now uses the term ‘Expo’ for all world fairs.
Montréal’s transformation and urban legacy
Expo 67 and the infrastructure created for the world’s fair transformed Sin-City era Montréal into a 21st century metropolis: Montréal’s iconic Métro subway system today boasts the second-highest ridership per capita in North America, behind only New York City; and the man-made islands in the St. Lawrence River – Île-Notre-Dame was created and Île Ste-Hélène expanded – are home to popular Parc Jean-Drapeau and the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve racetrack which hosts the annual Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada.
Architectural innovation: Habitat 67
The architectural legacy of Expo 67 also captured the imagination of the world: renowned Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 is a revolutionary urban housing complex originally built as a pavilion for Expo 67, where it gained worldwide acclaim as a prime example of avant-garde design. Today, visitors can take 90-minute guided tours of the world-renowned housing complex.
How Expo 67 popularized the term “Expo”
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, is the reason why the world now uses the term ‘Expo’ for all world fairs.
Expo 67 organizers “sought a recognizable name for the event that could work in both French and English, opting for ‘Expo’ as a contraction of the French word exposition,” states the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the Paris-based intergovernmental organization in charge of overseeing and regulating World Expos since 1931. “The term proved to be a hit, being adopted by Expo 1970 Osaka three years later and then by subsequent exhibitions, so that it is now a household name in various languages around the world.”
In Montréal, Expo 67 and its legacy remain a great source of pride.
Richard Burnett
Richard “Bugs” Burnett is a Canadian freelance writer, editor, journalist, blogger and columnist for alt-weeklies, mainstream and LGBTQ+ publications. Bugs also knows Montréal like a drag queen knows a cosmetics counter.