António Mega Ferreira and Expo '98: how Lisbon rebuilt its eastern riverside

On the evening of Tuesday 27 December 2022, the Teatro Camões in Parque das Nações opened its doors for a wake. The theatre stands on Lisbon's eastern riverside, in a district that 30 years earlier had held oil tanks and a slaughterhouse. The man in the coffin had done as much as anyone to put it there.3 sources3 sources

António Mega Ferreira had died in Lisbon the day before, Monday 26 December, aged 73. The news agency Lusa had it from a source close to him. His funeral was held at the same theatre on the Wednesday afternoon, followed by cremation at the Olivais cemetery nearby.3 sources3 sources

The tributes came from the top of the state. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa called him one of the most dynamic figures in Portuguese culture of the past half-century. The Culture Minister, Pedro Adão e Silva, spoke of an extraordinary public intellectual and a brilliant cultural manager. The Prime Minister, António Costa, wrote about the Expo.2 sources2 sources

António Taurino Mega Ferreira was born on 25 March 1949 in the Mouraria, the old quarter below Lisbon's castle, where he grew up. His father, a republican opponent of Salazar, kept a stationer's shop in the Baixa and chose his son's first names by joining those of the two grandfathers. António studied law at the University of Lisbon, and his father's death in 1969 sent him out to work, first translating the foreign press for the dictatorship's information office.2 sources2 sources

In 1972 he went to Manchester to train as a journalist. He worked on the opposition paper Comércio do Funchal before the revolution of 25 April 1974; after it he served in the offices of two ministers of the provisional governments, then joined the new evening paper Jornal Novo, worked at the weekly Expresso until 1978, at the news agency ANOP (the forerunner of Lusa), at the state broadcaster RTP and at O Jornal. He ran the newsroom of JL, the arts fortnightly Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias.2 sources2 sources

He also wrote: his first work of fiction, O Heliventilador de Resende, came out in 1985. Then, in 1988, the poet and translator Vasco Graça Moura invited him to work at the National Commission for the Commemoration of the Portuguese Discoveries, the state body for the fifth centenaries of the Portuguese voyages. Graça Moura presided over the commission and was also Portugal's commissioner for the Seville Expo of 1992.2 sources2 sources

The idea, as both men later told it, came up at lunch in 1989, at the Martinho da Arcada, the old café under the arcades of the Praça do Comércio. Portugal would hold a world exposition in 1998, the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's arrival in India.3 sources3 sources

Da Gama's fleet had left Belém on 8 July 1497 and reached Calicut, in India, on 20 May 1498. The opening date of 22 May 1998 fell two days after the quincentenary. The theme chosen for the fair looked forward rather than back: “The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future”. The United Nations, at the initiative of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, had proclaimed 1998 the International Year of the Ocean.3 sources3 sources

Aníbal Cavaco Silva's government backed the plan, and Mega Ferreira chaired the committee that promoted the bid. Lisbon's rival was Toronto. On 23 June 1992 the Bureau International des Expositions, the Paris body that sanctions world fairs, chose Lisbon. The press later called Mega Ferreira “o pai da Expo-98”, the father of Expo '98.5 sources5 sources

Three sites were studied for the fair: the western riverfront from the Torre de Belém towards Santo Amaro, near the site of the 1940 Exposição do Mundo Português; the south bank at Caparica; and the eastern riverside around the Olivais dock. Caparica was ruled out because the Expo had to be in Lisbon. At the end of 1990 the government chose the east, an area regarded, one study says, as Lisbon's “lixo”, its rubbish dump.1 source1 source

The Olivais dock had been built in the 1940s for the seaplanes that crossed the Atlantic. By the early 1990s the land between Cabo Ruivo and the mouth of the river Trancão was derelict and polluted. The oil refinery at Cabo Ruivo, where Portugal had begun refining petroleum, still had its tall Petrogal tower. Beside the Beirolas military depot stood a slaughterhouse, and the Trancão was a dead river with a nauseating smell.4 sources4 sources

Before anything could be built, the land had to be emptied. The list of what was removed includes the slaughterhouse, the refinery and its fuel depots, old military stores, scrap dealers, more than 15,000 damaged shipping containers, a shanty area with hundreds of residents and the Beirolas landfill. The residents were moved and rehoused. The soil was decontaminated and the Trancão cleaned up.2 sources2 sources

The government set up a company to do the job. Parque Expo 98, created by decree on 23 March 1993 with capital wholly owned by the state, was to design, build, run and finally dismantle the exposition, and to redevelop the surrounding zone. The plan had three stages: build from 1993 to 1998, hold the fair in 1998, then sell and develop the land until 2010.1 source1 source

Sources give different sizes, depending on what they measure. The intervention zone ran along about five kilometres of river and covered 330 hectares by one planner's count and 340 by others. The exhibition grounds inside it are given as anything from 25 to about 70 hectares: 25 was the first plan and the limit for a specialised expo, Portugal negotiated 60, and others give 50 or 70. The zone was planned for 25,000 residents and 20,000 jobs, so that the Expo's buildings would have a use once the visitors had gone.4 sources4 sources

Mega Ferreira sat on Parque Expo's first board, appointed in April 1993. He ran the area the company called Promark: the Expo's identity, contents, cultural and sports programme, marketing, sponsorship and ticketing. He also chaired the companies that would build and run the Oceanário and the big multi-purpose pavilion, and was the Expo's executive commissioner. The board's president, and the Expo's commissioner-general, was the engineer António Cardoso e Cunha. In February 1997 a new board took over under José Torres Campos, who also succeeded him as commissioner-general.4 sources4 sources

Only Mega Ferreira and one other director, António Manuel Pinto, kept their seats. Twenty years later he gave the credit elsewhere. Speaking about Cardoso e Cunha in 2018, he said: “Sem ele, a Expo não teria sido possível”. Without him, the Expo would not have been possible.2 sources2 sources

The planners took Barcelona's redeveloped port as their model, not Seville's Expo '92, which the architect Norman Foster had called “the Jungle of Buildings”. Lisbon's main buildings were designed as public facilities for the district that would follow, and most of them are still in use.2 sources2 sources

The Oceanário was the Expo's Oceans Pavilion. A team from Cambridge Seven Associates led by the American architect Peter Chermayeff designed it to stand in the water like an island or an anchored ship, and the Portuguese builder Engil put it up. Its main tank holds about 5 million litres, with four habitats around it: the North Atlantic, the Antarctic coast, the kelp forests of the temperate Pacific and the tropical Indian Ocean. It reopened as a permanent aquarium in October 1998.1 source1 source

Álvaro Siza Vieira designed the Pavilhão de Portugal, the host country's pavilion. Its ceremonial square is covered by a single canopy of prestressed concrete, and the building won the Valmor architecture prize. After years of neglect, when Siza himself said demolition was the logical option, the University of Lisbon took it over in 2015 and reopened it in 2025.3 sources3 sources

The Expo also paid for transport that the eastern city had lacked. A new metro line with seven stations reached the site. Santiago Calatrava's Gare do Oriente, opened on 19 May 1998, put trains, metro and buses under one roof; by 2018 more than 150,000 people a day used it. The Vasco da Gama Bridge across the Tagus estuary opened on 29 March 1998, after 37 months of work.4 sources4 sources

The bridge had its own financing. The main bridge and its viaducts are 12.3 kilometres long, and the whole crossing, with the access roads at each end, is 17.2 kilometres. It cost nearly €900 million: €319 million from the EU's Cohesion Fund and €299 million lent by the European Investment Bank, with €50 million raised from tolls on the older 25 de Abril Bridge.3 sources3 sources

The Expo opened on 22 May 1998, on the date planned. President Jorge Sampaio received 3,900 official guests on the first day, and more than 100,000 people came that weekend. A day ticket cost 5 contos, 5,000 escudos or about €25. The mascot was Gil, named after the fifteenth-century navigator Gil Eanes and drawn from a design chosen in a competition among schools.2 sources2 sources

Counts of participants vary with who is counted. Lusa gives 143 countries and 14 international organisations; the BIE and a 2018 study list 146 countries; the Tribunal de Contas wrote of about 160 countries and organisations. About 5,000 musical events were staged, and more than 1.3 million people went aboard the frigate D. Fernando II e Glória and the sail training ship Sagres at the nautical exhibition.4 sources4 sources

The crowds were real, but smaller than planned. In 1997 the fair was expected to draw about 15 million visitors. At the close the organisers announced 10,023,759. The Tribunal de Contas, auditing the company's own entry records, found 9,755,658 entries between 22 May and 30 September. It called them 62 per cent of the most cautious forecast in the attendance studies Parque Expo had commissioned, and 4,567,128 short of forecasts, two figures that do not quite agree.3 sources3 sources

In June 1998, a few weeks into the fair, Mega Ferreira told Lusa what he thought its lesson was. He borrowed a slogan of the Maoist MRPP, which had attracted him as a law student before 1974: “ousar lutar, ousar vencer”, dare to struggle, dare to win.1 source1 source

The fair ended on the night of 30 September with shows that ran until sunrise. That last night, 386,308 people were on the site, more than half of them arriving after eight in the evening. In October the Oceanário reopened as a permanent aquarium, and Parque Expo turned to selling the land around it.3 sources3 sources

In 2000 the Tribunal de Contas, Portugal's court of auditors, published its audit of the project from 1993 to 1998. Its first conclusion was a compliment. Its next were less comfortable.1 source1 source

By the auditors' count, the whole project, including construction, access roads, shows, accommodation, promotion and green spaces, had cost about 421 million contos by the end of 1998, roughly €2.1 billion. Revenue over the same years came to about 183.2 million contos, which left a gap of 238.2 million contos, or about €1.19 billion at the euro's fixed rate of 200.482 escudos.3 sources3 sources

Most of the money had been borrowed from banks with state guarantees, and the land sales meant to repay it were planned for 1999 to 2010. At the end of 1998, with negative equity, the company was “tecnicamente falida”, technically bankrupt. Even if every planned property sale went through, the auditors calculated a remaining gap of about 96.6 million contos, before counting any investment, running costs or interest after 1998.1 source1 source

The audit also found waste. The works contracts it examined, worth 34.3 million contos when signed, ended up 85.7 per cent over, through 26.7 million contos of extra work and 2.6 million in bonuses and surcharges paid to builders to finish on time. The attendance forecasts had led to car parks that were too big and hotel ships that were barely used, and the accommodation business lost about 5.67 million contos.1 source1 source

The state stepped in. In 1999 it signed a programme contract with the company, agreeing to raise its capital in stages to 55 million contos and to take over 40 million contos of guaranteed loans. A company owned by the state holding Partest bought the Pavilhão de Portugal, the Pavilhão do Conhecimento and the Teatro Camões for about 13.5 million contos.1 source1 source

Parque Expo carried on for years, managing the district and selling land. In December 2010 its debt stood at €224.9 million, and in 2011 the PSD-CDS coalition government announced it would be wound up. The liquidation began formally on 30 September 2014. In 2018 the last of its assets, including the marina and the cable car, passed to the state and to Lisbon City Council. Winding it up cost 161 jobs.2 sources2 sources

Mega Ferreira stayed with the project after the gates closed. He was president of Parque Expo from 1999 to 2002, when the auditors were going through its books and the company was beginning to sell the land. In 1998 he received the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Christ, and in 2003 Lisbon City Council gave him its Medal of Honour.2 sources2 sources

He had created and edited the books magazine Ler for the book club Círculo de Leitores, and in 1997 he led Portugal's programme as guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair. From 2006 to 2012 he was president of the Centro Cultural de Belém, the state arts centre in Belém. His years there were not easy: the CCB lost its Festa da Música, replaced in 2007 by the Dias da Música, and gave up its exhibition centre to the Berardo collection museum.3 sources3 sources

Later he became executive director of the association that runs the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa and its schools. All the while he wrote. He published more than 30 books of fiction, poetry, essays and biography, most of them after 2000, and loved Italy above all. His Crónicas italianas (2021) won the Portuguese Writers' Association's grand prize for travel writing in 2022, and his last book, a dictionary of words that have fallen out of use, came out in October 2022, two months before he died.3 sources3 sources

The Expo's land is now a neighbourhood of Lisbon in law as well as in fact. The reform of the city's parishes in 2012 created the freguesia of Parque das Nações and moved Lisbon's northern boundary to the river Trancão, the polluted river the Expo had cleaned up.3 sources3 sources

Mega Ferreira thought the Expo's bigger effect was on habits. Speaking in 2018, he said Lisboetas had discovered their riverside and the pleasure of public space, and that the example had spread to the rest of the city and the country, down to the design of park benches. Since 1998 the city has opened up much of its waterfront between Parque das Nações and Belém.2 sources2 sources

On 22 May 2025, the 27th anniversary of the opening, the restored Pavilhão de Portugal opened a city library under Siza's canopy. It holds Mega Ferreira's own books and carries his name.1 source1 source