World expositions and universal exhibitions

When the Belgian King Leopold II visited the Paris World Exhibition in 1900, he was delighted by the Tour du Monde attraction, a colourful mix of Japanese towers, Chinese porticos and Hindu-style galleries. All the architectural styles of the Far East were mixed there.

In 1930, when Belgium celebrated its centenary, Antwerp and Liège staged a world exhibition. Dozens of countries settled there and built pavilions to show their best sides, including Sweden.

Together with Liège, Antwerp was home to the 1930 World's Exposition, a double exhibition that the Bureau International des Expositions did not recognise.

On the eve of World War I, the World Exposition was organized in the Belgian city of Ghent.

To host the 1998 World Expo, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, spared no expense. An abandoned industrial site was bulldozed to create a new city district with expo pavilions.

Expo 58 left its mark on Brussels in every possible way. Just think of the reconstruction of the inner ring road and the Atomium. But what remains of it on the grounds of the world exhibition itself?

The Centenary Palace, a gift for Belgium's hundredth birthday, was the focal point of the World Exhibition in 1935, as the year in the pediments reveals.

Near the Hauptbahnhof station in Berlin, Germany, the only relict of the Berliner Gewerbeausstellung from 1879 is a higgledy-piggledy staircase.

Unlike the Belgian cities of Liège, Antwerp, Ghent or Brussels, Charleroi never hosted a World Fair. Therefore, the smaller-scale Universal Exhibition of Charleroi in 1911 was no less ambitious.