Our fearless leader (soon-to-be-replaced), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger returned recently  from a trip to Asia,  declaring himself so impressed by Shanghai’s vast 2010 Expo that he would like to see California host a World Fair in 2020.
Not everybody likes Expos, however, as Rowan Moore opined in the Guardian: “They are vast, extravagant pretexts for national and commercial posturing. They are miserable to visit, entailing foot-aching tramps and long queues to visit pavilions that are essentially 3-D powerpoint presentations. . . With stunning hypocrisy they give themselves environmental themes: “Humankind – Nature – Technology”, …

I love architecture.  Some buildings, by no means all, spark in me a visceral thrill comparable to a deeply powerful piece of music. They can be thrilling for their sensory qualities: light, space, materials and relationship to nature; or they can be thrilling for their bravado and sensation and sheer chutzpah. But sometimes those very same buildings, especially the ones bursting with chutzpah, can be troubling on another level. They can be a huge waste of money and resources; they can undergird a failed and unjust economic system; they can have been exploitative …