You Can’t Set Your Watch by This Swiss Festival
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MURTEN, Switzerland--Imaginative. Inspirational. Innovative. Immense. And very, very late.
Switzerland’s national exhibition, which opened last week and runs through Oct. 20, looks as though it’s set to be everything that its cautious, meticulous, tiny host nation is not.
About 5 million people are expected to attend Expo.02, which is scattered over three lakes and four towns (Biel, Murten, Neuchatel and Yverdon-les-Bains) in a scenic region off the usual tourist track. The festival is held about once in a generation; the last was in 1964.
“It will be a gigantic party in which Switzerland invites itself and the world to rediscover the world,” says Expo.02 chairwoman Nelly Wenger.
A highlight is a massive artificial cloud above Lake Neuchatel by New York architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio. The cloud’s steel structure incorporates a network of 33,000 jets that spray tiny droplets of water.
The festival was postponed for a year by financial and management problems. One-day admission is about $30 adults, $15 children 6 to 16, free under 6. 011-41-900-020-202, www.expo.02.ch.
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