Osaka Show 1970 was a hour-long musical produced by Valerio Lazarov for TVE (the national television station in Spain). It featured its countries biggest pop stars at the time: Massiel, Karina, Julio Iglesias and Miguel Ríos singing, strolling and galavanting through the amazing, colorful, awe-inspiring grounds of Expo ‘70 in Suita, Osaka, Japan. The TV special serves as a beautiful time capsule of the Metabolist movement. With a groundbreaking masterplan by Kenzo Tange and his team of a dozen Japanese architects, they successfully turned the expo park into a modern city with radical, urban design concepts which envisioned sea, sky, and space as future sites for human habitats.

The theme of Expo 70 was “Progress and Harmony for Mankind” and over 78 countries participated. As these Spanish pop stars take you on a utopian tour through the various pavilions you’ll see no shortage of incredible architecture, design, sculptures, waterfalls, skyways, modern furniture, roller coasters, monorails, animatronics, mirrored glass, domes, and people movers. Kenzo’s Tower of the Sun building which also served as the symbol of Expo ‘70 stands larger than life, Willy Walter’s Switzerland Pavilion illuminates with over 32,000 glass bulbs, while amazing details inside the pavilions are seemingly endless: The “Fuji Symphoni Toron” for example demonstrates a robot operated organ that could have served as the centerpiece of your living room today.

The fine folks over at Modcinema have just released the complete “Osaka Show 1970” TV special on DVD, but for now, enjoy these YouTube clips.
 

 
Special thanks to Josh Randall