Exhibitions Across Japan Remember Legacies of 1970 Osaka Expo and Other Expos Past

By Tatsuya Imaoka and Mutsumi Morita / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

11:30 JST, June 8, 2025

Exhibitions focusing on the art and architecture showcased at world expositions in the past, including the 1970 Osaka Expo, are being held across the nation to coincide with the ongoing 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo.

The exhibitions aim to reexamine the history of these big world events where cultures from across the globe can be encountered.

In Kawasaki

Among the legacies of the 1970 Osaka Expo, the Tower of the Sun in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, still draws visitors.

A temporary exhibition titled “Taro Okamoto and Tower of the Sun” is running at the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in Kawasaki until July 6. The event focuses on the artist’s ideas that came to fruition in the huge, strangely shaped structure.

The tower, which Okamoto designed not long before he turned 60, was created as a symbol of resistance against the modernism embodied in the expo’s theme of “Progress and Harmony for Mankind.”

The background to this was the folklore studies that Okamoto undertook as a student in Paris. The experience fostered his attitude of seeking a deep understanding of the roots of people’s lives.

The exhibition displays photos that Okamoto took after returning to Japan to document festivals, customs and architecture across the nation.

The photos indicate that Okamoto had a strong interest in his origins.

Among items related to the 1970 Osaka Expo, the exhibits include blueprints for the tower and motion pictures of Okamoto in the process of making the tower.

There is also a space that reproduces scenes from the 1970 Expo in which folk items from across the world were displayed in the base of the tower.

The tower, with its humorous and dynamic imagery, applauds the very existence of mankind.

A curator of the museum said, “Now that time has passed, I hope this exhibition is an opportunity to reconsider what Okamoto wanted to demonstrate at the [1970] Expo.”

In Osaka

The Takashimaya Archives in Naniwa Ward, Osaka, is holding an exhibition titled “Exposition Era” until Aug. 18. The exhibition shows the relationship between world expositions and department stores.

The displays include artistically dyed fabrics, rough drawings of the fabrics and award certificates that Takashimaya Co. showed at world expositions at home and abroad from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

They include a life-size design of a velvet wall hanging in the Yuzen style named “Nami ni Chidori” (Waves and plovers), which Japanese-style painter Seiho Takeuchi supervised. It is on display until June 23.

The painting is a fantastical depiction of plovers taking flight over the moonlit sea.

The wall hanging was displayed at the 1900 Paris Expo, and French actress Sarah Bernhardt bought it, causing a sensation.

This anecdote indicates how highly Japanese craftsmen’s skills were valued, in addition to the popularity of Japonisme — a trend that favored Japanese products — in those years.

Yuzen-style dyed fabrics and embroidered pictures shown in the exhibition are all precise and take visitors by surprise.

Takako Takai, a curator of the archives, said: “Utilizing the experiences of displaying at the expo, Takashimaya changed its sales approach from a zauri style [in which clerks pulled out goods as customers requested them], to the current style of showcasing products on store shelves. The expo is one of the factors that prompted the evolution from kimono shops to department stores.”

Items displayed will be subject to change during the exhibition.

In Tokyo

The National Archives of Modern Architecture in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, is holding an exhibition titled “World Fair in Japan 1970-2005,” which focuses on the role of world expositions from the perspective of architecture.

In the first phase of the exhibition that ended on May 25, it showed the efforts of talented architects who, through trial and error, led Japan’s architecture in the postwar period, mainly focusing on the 1970 Osaka Expo.

At the venue of the 1970 Expo, the 127-meter-high Expo Tower, which was designed by Kiyonori Kikutake, stood opposite the Tower of the Sun.

The exhibition displayed the twists and turns before construction of the Expo Tower began, including blueprints for a dynamic four-pillar structure that was ultimately not adopted.

The Sumitomo Fairytale Pavilion in the 1970 Expo, designed by Sachio Otani, was shaped like a flying saucer, and the exhibition displayed blueprints depicting precise frames with curved lines, and also abundant sketches suggesting the buds of his ideas.

In the next phase from June 14 to Aug. 31, the exhibition will focus mainly on the four expos held at home since the 1975 Okinawa International Ocean Exposition and those abroad.