Riyadh was chosen to host the 2030 World Expo on Tuesday, November 28th. The capital of Saudi Arabia was preferred over Pusan (South Korea) and Rome (Italy) after the vote organized by the International Exhibition Bureau (BIE).
The Saudi candidacy, the most controversial, boasted of “the first carbon-negative exposure” in a country that is nonetheless dry, among the world’s leading oil producers and one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases per capita. A week before the election results, fifteen human rights NGOs had called on the BIE to “not vote” because of Riyadh’s “horrible” human rights record.
The world exhibition takes place every five years and lasts a maximum of six months. They allow the selected country to “show itself to the world” while being “a laboratory for architects,” estimated Dimitri Kerkentzes, Secretary General of the BIE, on TV5Monde in April 2022.
For example, the Eiffel Tower in Paris was built for the World’s Fair of 1889, as were the Atomium and the Space Needle, symbolic structures of Brussels and Seattle (USA), which stood for those of 1958 and 1962. in Dubai recorded 24 million visitors. The 2025 event will take place in Osaka, Japan.
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