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1913 Ghent
| Name: | Exposition universelle et internationale |
| Dates: | 26 Apr – 3 Nov 1913 |
| Days: | 192 days |
| Venue: | Citadelpark – 770 ha (312 acres) |
| Theme: | Peace, Industry, and Art |
| Exhibitors: | 18,932 – 26 countries and 7 colonies 5,000 of these exhibitors were Belgian, 10,000 were French |
| Awards: | |
| Visitors: | 9,503,419 inc 86,000 season tickets – a disputed attendance |
| Legacy: | Costs were 16.5m BFr ($3.3m) and lost 2.5m BFr |
The organiser was Émile Coppieters, a Ghent councillor and a Liege senator. Its theme was declared as Peace, Industry and Art. Unfortunate on the eve of WWI.
The Flandria Palace Hotel (now a National Heritage site) and a railway station (still extant) were built to accommodate exhibitors and visitors.
opening the event
A Festival Palace was built, intended to be permanent, but most of the buildings were destroyed in WWI.
Countries exhibiting were: Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Persia, Romania, Russia, Spain and the United States. Those emboldened had pavilions.
Colonial pavilions were Belgian Congo, Algeria, British India, French India, Indochina, Morocco and Tunisia.
City pavilions were built for Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and Liege.
Attractions included, a broad range of textile machinery, some notable ballet performances by Nijinsky, a 5,000m (3m) scenic railway, Mr Bostocks’s Menagerie, a Congo Village,a Senegalese Village, a Filipino Village, Old Flanders, Flower Shows, Concerts…
The event experienced rather a lot of misfortune – no fewer than six fires, a gold ingot worth $20,000 was stolen from the Congo exhibit (but was later established to be a $200 imitation), nine of the 55 Filipinos in their Village died from exposure in November, worse those who survived were not paid as the agenct that had booked them went bankrupt.
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