Summer Previews : Double Exposure : Two European Cities Hope Their Extravagant Summer Expositions Will Draw Tourists from the New World and Old, and Revitalize Their Once-Proud Economies

Any American visitor to Expo ‘92, the world’s fair opening soon in the heart of Andalusian Spain, is sure to be disappointed--not by the splendor and whirl of the exposition itself, but by the meager look of the American pavilion.

Caught by limited appropriations and a drop in the value of the dollar, the U.S. government has managed to come forth with only two geodesic domes and an ugly box of a building, a complex put to shame at Expo ’92 even by the Puerto Rican pavilion.

But once beyond this bit of nationalist gloom, an American visitor is bound to be as delighted as any other visitor, for the Spaniards have tried hard to put together an elegant show for this 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of America by an admiral sailing in the pay of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Expo ’92 also will give visitors a chance to see a bit more of Andalusia, the sun-drenched, Arab-influenced Southern region of Spain that has produced such renowned Spaniards as the martyred poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), the 20th-Century composer Manuel de Falla, the old bullfighter Juan Belmonte and the Socialist politician who runs Spain today, Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez.

Expo ’92 will run here, in Spain’s third-largest city, from April 20 to Oct. 12 (Easter Monday through Columbus Day), and organizers hope to attract 18 million visitors to its 95 national and thematic pavilions and gardens, its 55,000 performances of opera, theater, symphonic music, jazz, rock and other entertainments and its 96 restaurants, 70 bars and cafes and 150 shops.

Exhibitors at world’s fairs, mostly governments, usually like to engage in a good deal of boosterism and propaganda as they show off their wares and culture--and word spreads quickly about the pavilions putting on the most novel or spectacular exhibitions inside and handing out the best freebies.

Unfortunately, my recent tour of the grounds three months before opening--when most pavilions were still going up and none of the exhibitions were ready--offered no help on such practical matters. But the tour did make a few things clear: the enormity of the exhibition grounds, the architectural novelty of some of the pavilions and the exciting extravagance of the plans.

Expo ’92 takes up 531 acres (almost a square mile) of the island of Cartuja, about a mile from the Alcazar, the old Moorish-looking royal palace in the center of town that is still used as the royal residence when King Juan Carlos comes to Seville. Although called an island, Cartuja is really the neck of a peninsula formed by the Guadalquivir River and an artificial river channel. It was once an isolated place with only the Carthusian Monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas and a bunch of agricultural plots. The monastery, where Columbus stayed before some of his voyages to America, has long ceased to function, but a British firm, Pickman, operated a ceramics factory within its walls for more than 100 years until 1971.

Now the monastery is surrounded by a host of cranes and scaffolding and bulldozers and almost-completed pavilions, for Expo covers almost all the peninsula. The city itself is clearly within reach, for the boundaries of the fair reach the shore of the river. In fact, once the fair opens, visitors will be able to walk right into Expo ’92 across one of three new bridges or soar over the river by a cable car from the center of Seville or board a boat at the 13th-Century Tower of Gold, a Moorish watchtower that guards the Guadalquivir.

Much like Barcelona in preparation for the Olympics, Seville has taken advantage of Expo ’92 to improve itself with long-needed projects. The city has built eight new bridges across the river, laid down more than 40 miles of new roads, added a terminal to the airport, modernized its port facilities and constructed a new railroad terminal. On top of this, the government has set down the lines for a new high-speed train that will move from Madrid to Seville in three hours. When Expo ’92 ends, Seville hopes to transform the fairgrounds into a gleaming site for high-tech industry.

According to the official count, 110 countries are taking part in the fair, a record for all fairs sanctioned by the Paris-based International Bureau of Exhibitions, but only 63 are building their own individual pavilions. The Spaniards have put up joint Latin American, Caribbean, African, Arab and South Pacific pavilions for those countries unable to afford a pavilion of their own.

The four-story Japanese pavilion, billed as the largest wooden building in the world, is clearly the most spectacular pavilion--a judgment rendered by most Spaniards who have watched the pavilions go up, and I could see no real rival when I toured the site. It features a sloping facade made up entirely of unpainted iroko wood from Central Africa.

Since the theme of Expo ’92 is the “Age of Discoveries,” the Spaniards have also set down five theme pavilions with a host of exhibits that not only describe what navigation was like in the 15th and 16th centuries, but look at modern space exploration as well and even attempt to predict future advances in energy and telecommunications.

An immense cultural program is promised--18 hours of nonstop entertainment every day--including performances by the Liceo Theatre of Barcelona with Jose Carreras and Teresa Berganza, the Metropolitan Opera with Placido Domingo, the New Zealand Symphony with diva Kiri Te Kanawa, the Vienna Staatsoper, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the English National Ballet and many others. An array of theater in many languages and performances of folklore, flamenco and the Spanish opera known as zarzuela are also planned.

Although the Spanish government promises that, by opening day, it will be possible to speed down to Seville from Madrid in a bit under three hours, it would be foolish for a visitor to rush back and forth. The city of Seville itself deserves one’s time, as do the two other important cities of Andalusia: Cordoba and Granada. (In fact, if it proves impossible to find reasonable accommodations in Seville, one would be wise to headquarter instead in these two smaller cities. Although Spain is no longer the tourist bargain that it once was, Cordoba and Granada are sure to be less expensive than Seville during Expo ’92.)

A longer look at Andalusia makes special sense in this 500th anniversary year, when Spaniards commemorate events far less inspiring than the discovery of America by Europeans. Aside from sending Columbus off in quest of the Indies in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella also expelled the Jews from Spain--unleashing an inquisition that terrorized those Jews who decided to remain in Spain and convert to Christianity--and, also that year, completed the conquest of the Arabs (Moors). But the magnificent legacy of the 700 years of the Arab era in Spain is all over Andalusia.

The largest region of Spain, Andalusia was under Arab rule longer than any other part of the country, and it is different from the high, cold, rocky areas of the north. Except for the mountains near Granada, it is much flatter, with lush vineyards, olive trees, orange orchards, large estates and white-washed villages packed with flat-roofed homes. Andalusia is also home to Gypsies, sherry and the art of bullfighting, and it probably seems closer to the picture-postcard view of Spain than any other region.

But there is nothing phony about Andalusia. It is, in fact, probably the most informal region of Spain, where people have the openness of Latin Americans. And now that Spain is run by Felipe Gonzalez, an Andalusian who derives much of his support from his compatriots there, the region is no longer a neglected area. The new highways that cross the region and the selection of Seville as the site for Expo ’92 speaks to that.

Andalusia does have a problem of climate in the summer. The heat can be oppressive, and most Andalusians move about only during the morning and evening during those times. Urban planners, however, are used to waging war against heat, and Expo ’92 will try to cool visitors with textile coverings, shading plants, water sheets, fountains, pools, sprays and a bioclimatic sphere that cools wind and breezes it down an avenue.

Seville is a crowded city with clogged traffic that makes it difficult at times for a stranger to navigate by car. But it is also a wondrous city to walk, with both Moorish buildings from the Arab days and lavishly baroque architecture from the era when Spain ruled most of the New World. There are special delights: the narrow streets and gentle plazas of the Santa Cruz neighborhood and the Juderia (the old Jewish quarter) behind the cathedral; the breezy walkways by the river, and the bustling shops, some selling tiles and other ceramics, on St. Jorge Street near the Juan Belmonte statue across the Bridge of Isabel II.

But the oldest part of town is probably the most picturesque, where two adjoining plazas lead to the Alcazar and to the cathedral Santa Maria de la Sede.

To demonstrate the power of Christianity, the Spaniards built the enormous cathedral Santa Maria de la Sede (larger in area than all other churches except St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London) on the site of an old mosque that had been built on the site of a Visigoth church that, in turn, had been built on the site of a Roman temple. All that is left of the mosque is the austere minaret (the tower from which Muslims are called to prayer), which the Spaniards kept as a cathedral tower, embellishing it with a striking weather vane that justifies the tower’s modern name, La Giralda (weather vane).

In a little over an hour, a visitor can drive from Seville to Cordoba, the largest city in Europe during the Arab Moorish era, and take in one of the most imposing mosques ever built, transformed into a cathedral after the Christian conquest. Cordoba also has a medieval synagogue, the only one left in Spain, outside Toledo.

In a little less than three hours, one can drive to Granada, site of the Alhambra, a justly famous series of small palaces brimming with some of the world’s most exquisite Arabic decoration. The palaces were the home and offices of the last sultan who surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella in Granada in 1492.

It is simply breathtaking to sit on a chair in the Alhambra and take in the endless swirl of geometric and calligraphic patterns carved in stucco. The beauty of the Alhambra was etched for all time by a Spanish poet who wrote of a blind beggar in Granada pleading with a woman leaving church, “Give me alms, my lady, for there is no worse affliction in life than to be blind in Granada.”

Spanish officials acknowledge that they have some concerns about security for Expo ‘92--partly because of the Basque separatist organization known as ETA, partly because of petty crime.

The Basque region of Spain is very far from Andalusia, but ETA is threatening to embarrass the Spanish government by acts of violence at both the Olympics in Barcelona and Expo ’92. In December, a bomb exploded at the Alfonso XII, Seville’s best-known hotel, causing some damage but, fortunately, injuring no one. The police blame ETA. To thwart it, the Spanish government will assign a force of 5,000 national police to Seville during Expo ’92.

In the last few years, tourists to Seville have been far more worried about purse snatchers and pickpockets than about ETA terrorists. There have been a large number of complaints about the thefts of money and passports, giving Seville an unpleasant reputation among tourists.

Expo ’92 officials insist, however, that the large contingent of national police assigned to the city to ward off ETA are sure to intimidate the petty criminals who prey on tourists and besmirch the name of Seville.

GUIDEBOOK

Seville’s Expo ’92

Getting there: During the April-May “shoulder” season, Iberia flies nonstop from Los Angeles to Madrid for about $950 round trip, with 30-day non-refundable advance purchase. American, Delta, Continental and TWA fly direct, with one stop, for about the same price. Iberia will fly passengers on to Seville at no additional cost; Iberia and Aviaco have several flights a day for about $130 round-trip. Beginning June 1, round-trip prices from L.A. to Madrid will increase to about $1,200, and will increase again during the Summer Olympic Games in July and August.

The 300-mile drive from Madrid to Seville on the N-IV highway (also known as the Highway of Andalusia) should take six to seven hours, and the new high-speed train (Madrid to the Expo terminal in three hours) is scheduled to be operational. A small car can be rented from Hertz or Avis for $265 a week (it’s best to make the arrangements before you leave the U.S.).

Admission: Expo ‘92’s admission prices, at present rate of exchange: adults, $40; children 5 to 14 and senior citizens, $15, children under 5, free. A three-day adults-only pass is $100. If you are lucky enough to show up on the fair’s 10 family days (the dates have not yet been announced), you will find prices cut in half. Expo ’92 is offering $10 night tickets for admission after 8 p.m.

Where to stay: Prices are soaring for the Expo season. I stayed at Seville’s luxurious, opulent Alfonso XIII hotel, where every room looks like a room of the Alhambra, for $210 a night in January. A sign in the room said that the regular rate would be $500 a night during the fair. But there are much lower-priced hotels in town, and Expo ’92 is running a service called “Sevilla Abierta” (Open Seville) that offers beds in private homes for $50 a night and up. Requests for hotel and private home reservations can be made through Expotourist Service (from U.S. phones, dial 011-34-5-446-1992) between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Spanish time, which is 11 p.m. and 11 a.m., West Coast time. Or write EXPOTOURIST SERVICE, Isla de La Cartuja, 41010, Seville, Spain. If you want to reach Sevilla Abierta directly, the number is 011-34-5-428-4936.

As of this writing, opening week accommodations in Seville are reported to be tight; accommodations for the rest of the fair’s run reportedly are still fairly plentiful.

Where to eat: One of the best-known restaurants in town is the Rio Grande. It is not inexpensive, but I thought the gazpacho, swordfish and view were worth the $40 I spent for my last lunch there. Seville is a good place to dine on tapas --the little snacks that all bars sell with beer, wine and soft drinks. Expo ’92 itself will offer a plethora of restaurants, bars and coffee shops.

For more information: Contact the National Tourist Office of Spain, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 960, Beverly Hills 90211, (213) 658-7193.