– In Lausanne, 60 years ago, Expo 64 shook Switzerland
The National Exhibition opened its doors on April 30, 1964, with the aim Of stirring up the country, considered prosperous but amorphous. Mission accomplished.
Published today at 7:30 a.m.
At the bottom of the Vallée de la Jeunesse in Lausanne, the expo daycare offers children a trip to the Moon aboard a flying saucer.
DR
On April 30, 1964, the country’s bells rang out loudly. In Lausanne, President of the Confederation Ludwig Von Moos cuts the red and white ribbon with gold scissors. The Swiss landed at Vidy on 60 hectares, a third of which were reclaimed from Lake Geneva. There, the future began. We travel there by monorail. We are about to visit the bottom of the lake aboard the first tourist submarine Of the history. And the Expo 64 daycare offers children a trip to the Moon aboard a flying saucer.
Bold and controversial, the National Exhibition in Lausanne coincides with an era of changes in infrastructure and in mentalities, whether it concerns consumption – the age of cars and cigarettes, which we are returning to today – or society, with the change in the status of women. The largest event ever organized in Vaud was the result of these divisions between traditionalism and modernism.
General view of the “A day in Switzerland” section. We can see a body of water, the monorail as well as the colored cells of the section with the giant Gulliver, to whom visitors can give their vision of Switzerland.
Historical Museum of Lausanne/DR
The “Lausanne Opinion Sheet” makes no mistake, in a fourteen-page supplement published on D-Day: “Despite a too widespread climate of skepticism, even defeatism – which already proved to what extent, in Switzerland of prosperity, this demonstration was necessary – Lausannois and Vaudois found support and enthusiasm everywhere, throughout the Confederation, explains journalist Pierre Cordey. Expo 64 has already, in its preparation, asserted itself nationally.”
Diving, July 14, with the Mesoscaphe “Auguste Piccard”. Designed by Jacques Piccard, the world’s first tourist submarine transported more than 30,000 people to the depths of Lake Geneva during the event.
KEYSTONE/PHOTOPRESS-ARCHIV/Str
The Vaudois capital can pride itself on being the first ready on time, unlike the national exhibitions in Zurich (1883), Geneva (1896), Bern (1914) and Zurich (1939). And Lausanne holds much more than a consolation After letting the 1960 Summer Olympics slip away to the benefit of Rome. On the opening day, the event had 21,246 entries, before attendance took off, reaching 165,290 visitors on the last day. In total, 12 million people will go there in six months.
Swiss National Exhibition of 1964 in Lausanne. The Vallée de la Jeunesse with the Maladière roundabout. After the roundabout, the kindergarten. In the background, the industry and craft sector with its square buildings.
DR
Sustained from degeneration
At the beginning of the 1960s, the national economy was doing so well that the Swiss seemed to be suffering, noted the Federal Council. “The population could degenerate into an amorphous mass,” adds the director of Expo 64, Edmond Henry. Among the individuals surveyed during a preparatory study, some agreed: “Many do not see further than the refrigerator.” Expo 64 cannot therefore be satisfied, like previous exhibitions, with glorifying national identity. And it therefore raises two essential questions: where are we? And what does the future hold for us?
The “hedgehog” of the Swiss army, One of the most famous pavilions of the expo.
Lausanne Historical Museum/Georges Rapin
Visitors can imagine their future in eight sectors distributed in a single “multicellular” entity, according to the expression of chief architect Alberto Camenzind, and no longer in a set of pavilions. The first sector, “La Voie Suisse”, invites you to meditate on the history of the country, its cultural values, its political system.
View under the little train in the “Communication and Transport” sector.
Lausanne Historical Museum/Georges Rapin
Another sector celebrates rationalized industry to which three attractions respond: the symphony “Les exchanges” for typewriters composed by Rolf Liebermann, and “Eureka”, the machine by Jean Tinguely, which produces nothing but wonder. In the films he offers, the director and ethnologist Henry Brandt, responsible for detecting the faults and defects of the socio-economic system, questions: “Is everything really going so well here?” But, in the last sector, the army always watches by displaying its most efficient weapons.
Visitors in front of giant steel wheels for steam locomotives in the industrial sector.
KEYSTONE/PHOTOPRESS-ARCHIV/Str
From the top of the “Spiral” tower, visitors discover the scale of the site designed by 53 architectural offices. Pyramids were built. Max Bill built an “ephemeral” Vidy theater. A valley (of the youth) was shaped. THE first roundabout in the country sees the first driving enthusiasts circulating. The exhibition also recommends that visitors come by car. And two new ports have been developed.
The front page of the “Lausanne Notice Sheet” of April 30, 1964. The newspaper devotes a 14-page supplement to the event.
Tamedia
At Expo 64, where the day pass costs 6 francs, people go from black and white to color and give their own visions of Switzerland to the giant Gulliver, a giant automaton connected to an IBM computer responsible for studying them. The responses to this sociological survey, idea of the director – and conscientious objector – Charles Apothéloz, to which 580,000 people will respond, so embarrassed the Federal Council that they were censored. One of the questions asked remains famous: “Can you be a good Swiss and only get up at 9 a.m.?”
At this point you will find additional external content. If you accept that cookies are placed by external providers and that personal data is thus transmitted to them, you must allow all cookies and display external content directly.
Allow cookiesMore informations
Collaboration: Raymond Esatoglu and Anne-Marie Jaquier, librarians
Claude Béda is a journalist for the 24-hour Vaudois section. Passionate about social issues and the lives of people here, he covered several regions of the canton, before joining the Lausanne editorial team. More informations
Did you find an error? Please report it to us.
0 comments
