Expo-nential Futures: How Mega-Events Continually Reshape Milan

Abstract

How have repeated mega-events in Milan changed the form and nature of the city? This thesis tracks threads between universal and particular conditions that influenced Milan’s decision to participate in Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) events. By analyzing urban development patterns and planning archives, I am interested in critically examining planning history to uncover the embeddedness of mega-event planning within notions of power, social imaginaries, and distinct stakeholder groups, and how this impacts urbanization processes. I argue that participation in the BIE is not an inescapable economic strategy – as records have suggested – but instead reflects the complicated entanglements between politics, economy, and civic input of planning in decision-making processes. Through the project, I find that BIE events have enabled a distinct set of space protagonists that shape the city's future development trajectories and social imaginaries, requiring planners to rethink long-term strategies for the short-term duration of BIE events.