Machinery and automation are popular words today, but they lack the full impact of a simple phrase: tools for Man, which is at the roots of the philosophy of Man and his World.

The function of the tools of Man is to aid production, and the Theme complex which relates Man to their functions is therefore: Man the Producer.

The Man the Producer pavilion is on Ile Notre-Dame, immediately adjoining the Expo-Express station. It comprises a single building designed to tell one story under three headings: Resources for Man, Progress and Man in Control?. Each exhibit is complete in itself, but all are interdependent.

Escalators carry visitors from ground level to a balcony from which there is access to all three sections of the complex. Restaurants overlook a canal.

Man the Producer takes minerals from the earth and draws energy from the sun and converts them to his purposes. The impression the visitor receives is that the resources available to Man are still abundantly adequate if he will use them with intelligence and understanding. The mood of Man the Producer is therefore of confidence.

Resources for Man

Earth's resources are as useful to Man as he is able to make good use of them. The most important resource is, therefore, Man himself.

Matter and Energy are one and the same. The chemical aspect of our resources is illustrated by a three-dimensional periodic table containing true samples of all elements (except colorless gases and radioactives) on earth and wall structures showing the quantitative composition of man, plants and earth, all built with 6" acrylic cubes.

A multi-screen audio-visual presentation explaining the exploitation by Man of earth resources is amplified by exhibits on uses of materials and on modern energy conversion processes. The inefficiency of traditional conversion processes involving chemical, thermal and nuclear energy sources, and the consequent need for conversion to electrical power, are stressed.

Man's involvement in the discovery, extraction and use of resources is demonstrated in pictorial and model form.

In the final area, the increasing importance of energy and its correlation with Man's standard of living is treated pictorially and statistically.

Progress

Since the dawn of time, Man has searched for tools to reduce his physical effort and increase his productivity. New tools mean progress. Progress means change. Progress benefits the community, but may harm the unlucky individual.

An impression of abundance is created by a large variety of industrial and consumer products moving on three conveyor belts in mirror boxes. This stresses the capabilities of the many examples of modern computer-controlled, manpower and time saving machine tools in operation around the boxes.

Man's dreams and achievements to reduce his physical work and the concomitant, unexpected sociological side effects are then traced from the water wheel to the first double-action steam engine, in the form of models, pictures and conversational commentary.

From today's machine tools to full automation: the operating vertical automatic factory, simulating the production of color television receivers and home movie projectors on two assembly lines equipped with off-the-shelf machine tools, demonstrates that full automation is closer than just around the corner, capital resources and organized labour permitting.

As a parting shot, a series of pictures with questions as captions, leaves the visitor to decide for himself whether modern technology is worth it, e.g. the picture of a super-highway bridge is punctuated by the question: Do you think Technology permits us to find new landscapes or merely allows us to ignore the old?

Man in Control ?

Man must have control of his World for the benefit of mankind. Control + observation + analysis + decision + action, with information processing (communications + data storage and retrieval) as catalyst between the elements of control. Technology is creating the means for more efficient observation, analysis, action and information processing, thereby freeing Man to concentrate on that element of control only he can handle, decision.

Pictures and captions illustrate the difference in circumstance where "Man has control" and "Man has lost control", and state the "control equation".

A film traces the acceleration in telecommunications by looking at the spread of news of four historical events: the murder of Caesar and Lincoln, the "Titanic" disaster and the assassination of Kennedy. Communications satellites and the facsimile printout of dailies from Suva, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Lausanne, Paris and London demonstrate the means and speed of modern communications.

Working models illustrate the means of extending man's senses, represented by the most important, vision. IR, UV, microscopy, radar and television, observation from weather satellites are among these demonstrations, with models of scientific observation satellites and space exploration craft overhead.

The resultant information explosion is demonstrated by tracing the history of data recording in picture and sound, from cave drawings to modern electronic data printouts.

A working computer-assisted retrieval system illustrates the means available for coping with the explosion and analysis of information and establishes the computer as a tool for Man. Demonstrations of specialized applications -- the computer as design and teaching aid -- and of recent advances in computer techniques -- a talking computer -- stress the computer's usefulness to Man and his incessant effort to make this tool evermore useful.

A new method of control, in one of the few areas where mankind has achieved universal agreement -- air traffic control -- illustrates, through audio-visual means, Man's role as decision maker which the computer enables him to assume.

A "pop-art" mural shows the statistical differences between rich industrialized and poor peasant economies, and poses the question whether the "control equation" could be appropriately applied to this dilemma of mankind in order to eliminate the inherent threat of global war.

Click here to see an architectural plan of the Man the Producer pavilion.

Click here to see a photo of the construction of the Man the Producer Pavilion.