A Place in the Sun

Spokane, in the wheat and lumber country of eastern Washington State, was named for an Indian tribe called "children of the sun." Until recently, however, the 100-year-old city was gradually falling under the shadow of urban blight. Now one of the few internationally sanctioned expositions held in the U.S. since the great New York World's Fair of 1939 has helped Spokane (pop. 180,000) become once again a sunny place for children-- and their beguiled parents.

Expo 74 is devoted to "celebrating tomorrow's fresh new environment" --and environmental planning had to begin at home. A tangle of railroad tracks, trestles, unsightly warehouses and a Skid Road in a 55-acre central city area were cleared for the Expo 74 site. Ramshackle structures on two islands in the Spokane River were also razed, and the polluted river was cleaned up so that now, surging green and foamy through the fair site, it is a major at traction, complete with falls that can be crossed by overhead gondolas.

Fresco Feeling. Though it is a small fair by New York or Montreal standards, Spokane's Expo has a number of imaginatively designed pavilions. The $11.5 million U.S. pavilion dominates the site. Its theme: "Earth does not be long to man; man belongs to the earth." Umbrellaed by a translucent vinyl canopy that would cover nearly two football fields but does not touch the ground, the pavilion inside has an al fresco feeling and a cinema with the largest screen in the world (nine stories wide, six stories high). It features a film on U.S. ecology that opens with a soaring, swooping flight into the Grand Canyon and winds up with a rip-roaring raft ride down the Colorado River. Another section, called "The Consumer and the Environment," has as displays a collection of abandoned consumer goods and an assemblage of old bathtubs and sinks around a fountain, illustrating, in Pop art fashion, Americans' prodigal waste of water.

Among the nine other national pavilions, the $3 million, 62,000-sq.-ft. Soviet building is the most popular. The building is a visual delight, from the entrance, prefaced by pools, fountains and water plants, to a riverfront restaurant, supervised by a chef who presides over the best chicken Kiev this side of Leningrad. It has huge, non-Stakhanovite art montages, three movie theaters, an exhibition of Armenian archaeological artifacts and, in keeping with Expo's theme, ingenious models of air-and water-purification systems.

For children, particularly, another delight is the "Folk Life Festival," which is devoted to U.S. and Canadian ethnic groups and their crafts. In one section, aromatic with Scottish haggis* acooking, clansmen show how to make bagpipes, boots, quilts and kilts, and invite youngsters to join in. In another section there are Indian tepees and longhouses, and a sluice where kids can pan for gold.

The youngsters can also learn the art of boatbuilding while they watch skilled workmen construct a full-size craft.

Outdoor Restaurant. The Japanese, who spent more than $1 million for their pavilion, have included a pristine Nipponese garden with a languid stream flowing through it like a haiku. Australia, concerned with its environment, candidly displays its depredations of wallabies and alligators as well as other species unique to its island-continent. In all the other national exhibits--those of West Germany (featuring a movie of the ruined Rhine), the Philippines, Iran, Canada, Nationalist China (with a spectacular cinema, a display of art objects and performers celebrating such occasions as Confucius' birthday) and South Korea, which has indoor and outdoor spicy-food restaurants--the environmental theme is intelligently and honestly presented.

The Spokane Expo has already attracted a half-million visitors--far more than city officials had expected. Moreover, when the fair ends in November, it will leave the city with a new 2,700-seat opera house (in the $11.9 million Washington State pavilion), convention facilities, the Canada Park, the Boeing Amphitheater (as a civic center) and the Bavarian Gardens, a decagon of glass, fir and larch housing a German restaurant. In return for the $78.4 million cost of the fair, the city already boasts 7,200 new jobs and a $200 million boost to the economy. More important, perhaps, Expo 74 will attract millions of people to a city that was well-named, and long abused, as a place for children and sun.

*A mixture of animal intestines and oatmeal, usually boiled in a sheep's stomach.

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