上海世博不惜工本 欲惊艳亮相

The World Expo that begins May 1 promises to be nothing less than a coming-out party for Shanghai, China's commercial and financial capital. Following the lead of Beijing for the Olympics, Shanghai, which has already changed so much in the past three decades, has staged a spare-no-expense makeover.

Early this month, the Expo site was a huge muddy field filled with workers, cranes, piles of building materials and heaps of construction debris. It was difficult to imagine that everything would be completed in time. China says 192 countries will come to this city of 19 million to participate in the six-month festival, drawing an estimated 70 million attendees. (The 12-month 1964-65 New York World's Fair drew more than 50 million.)

Still, tour packagers so far report very modest interest from Americans and Europeans, with rooms for the fair period easy to find even at the best hotels. 'People just don't know about the Expo, even many Chinese citizens,' says Terrence Ou, president of the Beijing-based Great Wall Adventure tour agency.

'If it were a different city hosting it, if it were of modest size, I might say' that any lack of enthusiasm was warranted, says Jose Villarreal, a San Antonio lawyer who is the U.S. commissioner general -- a sort of ambassador -- to the World Expo. 'The fact that it will be the biggest Expo ever, that so many Americans have always wanted to see China, that Shanghai is such a dynamic place -- all this makes it a reason to come.'

The massive $61 million U.S. pavilion at the Expo almost created a major diplomatic rift between the two countries. A congressional mandate from the 1990s forbids government funding for an Expo, and only a last-minute fund-raising effort by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton salvaged U.S. participation.

Construction, which began only last July, has been 'a horrific process because of our late start,' says Mr. Villarreal, who nevertheless promises an on-time debut. Keeping with the Expo's theme of 'better city, better life,' the U.S. pavilion will feature a high-tech show on a 70-foot-high screen telling the story of a child who moves a community to create an oasis on a dilapidated plot of land. Mr. Villarreal calls it '4-D. When it thunders you'll feel the vibration. When it rains you'll feel the mist.'

It's clear why the absence of a U.S. pavilion would have been such a slap in the face. China is footing the bill for 17 pavilions, many of which will house multiple countries, and building 42 others that it will rent to countries at a substantial loss. Only 42 nations, including the U.S., are financing their own pavilions.

Other countries are vying for attention with spectacle (Saudi Arabia's hanging garden, on the top deck of a suspended boat) and culture (Denmark will send the original 'Little Mermaid' statue from Copenhagen Harbor and France will ship works by Millet, Van Gogh and Rodin).

Expo organizers promise 20,000 events around Shanghai, ranging from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the Cameroon National Song and Dance Troupe. Kids can see magic shows, puppet shows and shadow plays.

The Expo site stretches for a couple of miles along the Huangpu River in a formerly rundown industrial area, across the water from central Shanghai. While some of the pavilions are nearly finished, others are skeletons of steel beams. Incongruously, the trees had already been planted by late February, a necessity if they're going to grow leaves in the springtime. Two giant red-and-gold banners read in Chinese, 'Please be reassured; we will finish the task in time,' and (directed to workers), 'Hard work for 30 days and we will finish it.'

'The infrastructure and all the buildings built by China will be finished totally on time, I know that,' says Wu Siegfried Zhiqiang, an architecture professor and dean serving as the Expo's chief planner. The challenge, he says, lies with the 42 countries building their own pavilions.

No visitors are allowed in the buildings because of the construction work, but the exteriors range from breathtakingly innovative to dull, big boxes, albeit colorfully painted. China has again produced two beautiful buildings, a flying-saucer-shaped cultural center for performances and a China pavilion of horizontal and vertical red beams, with the dimensions of the building widening the higher up it goes. The theme inside will be China's urban development.

The conventional-looking U.S. pavilion won't produce any gasps, but that's not true of some of the other nations'. The British pavilion, displaying an encapsulated seed bank, centers on a building resembling a giant porcupine, made from 60,000 acrylic rods that quiver when they catch the wind, making the building look blurry. The modular slabs of the Italian pavilion, constructed of a material called transparent cement, will change appearance during the day as the material reflects the light. The walls of the Spanish pavilion, jutting out at all angles, are covered with wicker.

Switzerland will offer visitors a cable-car ride onto a flowering meadow on the roof of its pavilion, while the Indian pavilion will be modeled after a 2,200-year-old Buddhist stupa and display the wisdom of the ancients.

Across the river, the landmark buildings of the waterfront Bund, dating back to the late 19th century as the center of foreign-owned businesses, have been elegantly restored and now house a variety of expensive boutiques and restaurants. The former British Consulate, built in 1873, will open for the Expo as an art center. The city is completely rebuilding the waterfront promenade. (Unfortunately, the wild building boom of the past 20 years, carpeting Shanghai with skyscrapers, destroyed much of the city's architectural heritage.) The Bund's iconic but deteriorating Peace Hotel is about to reopen after months of restoration. A new addition to the Bund, designed to look like a restored old building, is the elegant 235-room Peninsula Hotel.

There will be another way for Americans to stay: Shanghai residents who register with the city's tourism authority can legally take paying guests into their apartments, although the nightly charges and the procedure for making reservations haven't yet been set. Translators will be stationed at big apartment complexes. By Nov. 1, the events and crowds will all be over. Ironically, for an Expo that promotes the buildings' energy-saving features and emphasizes the concept of sustainability, almost the entire set of exhibits will be thrown away. The rules of the Paris-based Bureau of International Expositions, which govern World Expos, require that all of the pavilions be torn down. An Expo spokeswoman says that only five buildings will survive, including the cultural center. Mr. Villarreal shudders at the thought that the American pavilion, built with so much anguish, will eight months from now be reduced to a pile of debris. 'I hope we can disassemble the building and move it,' he says.