Expo 88 was a World Expo held in Brisbane with the theme "Leisure in the Age of Technology". The event is considered a significant turning point for Brisbane, spurring subsequent tourism, investment, and the development of the South Bank Parklands.

I recently donated to the Queensland State Library a layout plan of the Expo 88 tenancies approved on 2 February 1988. This was close to the opening on 30 April 1988.

It is similar to the James Maccormick layout plan from 1983 which is held by the State Library as part of the James Mccormick World Expo 88 Collection but shows the proposed tenancies close to the opening date in 1988.

Back story to its acquisition.

Expo 88 ran from 30 April to 30 October 1988 at South Bank in Brisbane. An amazing event, it attracted an average of 100,000 people per day. As a law student at QUT, you would hear the nighttime fireworks on the other side of the Brisbane River at 10pm, around the time the Law Library was closing.

In my law student days, I would buy and sell office furniture, mainly filing cabinets, for extra cash.

At the end of Expo 88, most of the assets, including office furniture, were sold by public tender. I successfully tendered for around 100 used filing cabinets (and whatever contents remained in them).

The layout plan was in one of the filing cabinets.

Stored for many years, the State Library plans to make the layout plan available for viewing by the public.

James Mccormick World Expo 88 Collection

September 2025

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