EXPO 2005

The History of World Expositions - Part II

The 1930s were marked by the Great Depression and the increasing aggressivity of totalitarian states, but also by a belief in a better tomorrow encouraged by the successes of scientific and technological developments. Each of these trends was reflected in a world exposition opened on May 27, 1933 in the city of Chicago by former President Herbert Hoover called "A Century of Progress."

The idea behind the exposition was to demonstrate "the nature and significance of scientific discoveries, the methods of achieving them, and the changes which their application has wrought in industry and in living conditions." This World Exposition was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the city of Chicago. The exposition grounds covered a total of 173 hectares south of downtown Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan between 12th and 39th Streets and on North Island, built on landfill in the lake. It was possible to reach the island either by ferry or by the Sky Ride, designed by Joshua d’Esposito. The Sky Ride consisted of double-decker rocket cars suspended on cables strung between two towers two hundred meters above the lake. The organizers aim was to present the importance of scientific inventions and changes that their use had brought about in everyday life. Major companies presented the latest manufacturing techniques. In the imposing Chrysler Motors Pavilion, cars were assembled on an assembly line right in front of visitors to the fair. The German Museum of Hygiene in Dresden celebrated its last success at a World Exposition with its "Glass Man", an exact didactic aid. The star of the Midway entertainment district was incorrigible Sally Rand and her fan dance.

The exposition was a landmark in two different ways. Thanks to improvements in electrical lighting it was possible to build pavilions without windows thus freeing up the interiors from their dependence on daylight. The second factor that allowed a radical change in the appearance of the pavilions was color. The exposition’s board of trustees without hesitation chose Joseph Urban as the fair’s director of color responsible for the overall color scheme of the exposition grounds. Urban went so far as to give each the different areas its own color scheme. This effect was further enhanced by the nighttime illumination of the pavilions. With an eye towards making a profit, the Chicago City Council decided to extend the fair into a second season. This meant that between May 26 and October 21, 1934, another 16.5 million visitors were added to the 1933 total of 22.5 million. As a part of the preparations for the second season, the pavilions received a new color scheme!

Between May 25 and November 25, 1937, Paris played host to the International Exposition of Arts, Crafts and Sciences in Modern Life. The exposition grounds covered a total of 105 hectares that included the Champs de Mars, the Trocadero and both banks of the Seine, an area that was approximately the same as that of the 1900 World Exposition. The organizers divided the fair into three thematic blocks: the economy, spirituality and world peace (many congresses were held on this last topic within the framework of the exposition). Forty-six countries took part in the exposition, the opening of which was delayed several times because of strikes and the indifference of bureaucrats. On top of this there were problems with the construction of the Chaillot Palace. Even after the exposition was officially opened, many of the pavilions were still not complete. This led Parisians to tell the joke that they were only able to open the exposition at all because the Eiffel Tower had already been built. The Chaillot Palace did become the symbol of this world exposition. Among other structures to permanently enrich Paris was the neo-Classicist Museum of Modern Mart. The most widely acknowledged of the national pavilions was the Finish Pavilion. Its architect Alvar Aalto achieved his prize-winning effect through the use of the traditional Scandinavian material of wood. The Soviet Union took part in a world exposition for only the second time (if their "anti-colonial" pavilion at the Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931 is not included), their first appearance having also been in Paris in 1925. The Soviet Pavilion stood symbolically across from its German counterpart. Both Boris Iofan and Albert Speer built monstrosities lacking any sense of humanity. The rivals were only separated from one another visually by the Trocadero Fountain. Although the Soviet Pavilion was smaller, it was crowned with a colossal sculpture by Vera Mukhina, Worker and the Collective Farm Girl, where the figures are depicted striding forward, arms raised. Facing it was the German Imperial eagle perched on a swastika. The desire for peace was expressed on a column in front of the Chaillot Palace with the word "Pax" carved on it. The anti-war feeling here was further enhanced by the most famous exhibit in the pavilion of the Spanish Republicans: Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. In contrast, Nazism had found an outstanding propaganda machine in a young, able director Leni Riefenstahl, who impressed the exposition jury with her film Triumph of the Will. This film about the Nazi Party rallies in Nuremburg received the Grand Prix. A total of 31 million visitors passed through the exposition’s gates.

New York City hosted the World’s Fair from April 30 to October 31, 1939 and May 11 to October 27, 1940. The exposition grounds were located on a reclaimed landfill (in his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to this inhospitable site at the "Valley of Ashes"). Today, it is the site of Flushing Meadows. The size of the exposition grounds was tremendous: 486.5 hectares. A record number of sixty countries and international organizations took part. One event of historical import was the first public television broadcast for New York City on April 30. David Sarnoff, the president of RCA (the Radio Corporation of America) stood in front of his company’s pavilion and announced that this event would change the world. The fair grounds were dominated by the 213-meter high, three-sided obelisk known as Trylon and the 60-meter diameter Perisphere, which were designed by the architects Wallace K. Harrison and J. Andre Foulihoux. These eccentric shapes a presented a dynamic contrast of opposites. The exposition presented many new materials to the public: Plexiglas, fiberglass, bakelite, fluorescent lights, nylon (short for New York and London), Kodak color film and Polaroid glasses for watching 3D movies. The most successful business exhibit was Futurama in the General Motors Pavilion. Futurama was a vision of the city in 1960. Although the best pavilion was judged to have been the Swedish Pavilion designed by Sven Markelius, the most visited pavilion was the mysterious (for Americans) Soviet Pavilion, which had air conditioning and was faced in red Karelian marble (the same stone used on Lenin’s mausoleum). In January 1940, during the increasingly bitter military campaign against Finland, this pavilion was taken down at the request of the Soviet commissioner and sent back to the Soviet Union. In addition to Soviets, other countries that did not open their pavilions during the expositions second year were the Netherlands, Argentina and Siam (Thailand). The national expositions turned into a shadow play: may of the states had either lost their sovereignty or had disappeared. This was also the last world exposition that the League of Nations participated in. The organizers began to recognize the seriousness of the situation and changed the exposition’s motto in its second year to "Peace and Freedom." A total of 50 million people visited the exposition.

Mgr. Jaroslav Halada

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