expositions – Page 9 – { feuilleton }

The Columbus Monument

You can always rely on expositions and world’s fairs for architectural extravagance. This monster globe was an unrealised proposition for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and would have required potential visitors to be conveyed “by lift to the Equator, and thence by spiral railway to the North Pole.” What Columbus’s ship is doing perched at the top of the world is anyone’s guess. I’ve not been able to discover who was responsible for this; Erik Larson’s book about the fair (and the career of serial killer HH Holmes), The Devil in the White City, doesn’t mention the monument in its index.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Exposition Universelle publications
• Exposition cornucopia
• Return to the Exposition Universelle
• The Palais Lumineux
• Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
• Exposition Universelle, 1900
• The Palais du Trocadéro
• The Evanescent City

Exposition Universelle publications

More Exposition Universelle fetishism. The Internet Archive has a small collection of documents from the Paris exposition, not all of them of interest but these two are worth a look for their pictures at least. Exposition universelle, 1900; 32 vues photographiques (above) features various views of the exposition exhibits although they’re made somewhat redundant by the Brooklyn Museum’s Flickr set of tinted photos.

Of more interest is Les principaux palais de l’Exposition universelle de Paris with its details of the extravagant architectural confections on display. And for a look at a visitors’ guide there’s Paris Exposition, 1900: guide pratique du visiteur de Paris et de l’exposition from Hachette & Cie, still going strong today and now the UK’s largest publisher.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Exposition cornucopia
• Return to the Exposition Universelle
• The Palais Lumineux
• Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
• Exposition Universelle, 1900
• The Palais du Trocadéro
• The Evanescent City

Exposition cornucopia

Poster by Glen C Sheffer (1933).

The image galleries at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library have been garnering justifiable attention recently for the quality of their collection. Among the groupings, the World’s Fairs and the Landscapes of the Modern Metropolis section immediately caught the attention of this exposition and world’s fair fan. An amazing collection of posters, exposition booklets, photos and plans, many of which augment the subjects of previous postings including the 1900 Exposition Universelle. A very brief and cursory selection follows.

Continue reading “Exposition cornucopia”

Return to the Exposition Universelle

Main entrance gate by René Binet.

I can’t leave the 1900 Paris exposition alone, and with good reason. If further proof were required that this event brought Winsor McCay’s Slumberland to earth for a few weeks, this stunning Brooklyn Museum Flickr set has the evidence. Not only five pages of high-resolution views but they’re all hand-tinted which adds to the splendour and highlights the ladies’ parasols.

For earlier posts on the Exposition Universelle, see the links below. Via Things Magazine.

Esplanade des Invalides.

Palace of Electricity.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Palais Lumineux
• Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
• Exposition Universelle, 1900
• The Palais du Trocadéro
• The Evanescent City
• Winsor McCay’s Hippodrome souvenirs

The Palais Lumineux

A final visit to the Exposition Universelle of 1900 with this photograph of the Palais Lumineux, a piece of period Chinoiserie built in the Champ de Mars close to the Eiffel Tower. I forget where I found this tinted view but Wikipedia has what appears to be the same photograph coloured so as to resemble a night scene.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
• Exposition Universelle, 1900
• The Palais du Trocadéro
• The Evanescent City
• Winsor McCay’s Hippodrome souvenirs