Thursday Travesty or Triumph VII

Well folks Thursday Travesty or Triumph is a bit late this week but at least its here. Most of the Travesty or Triumphs are places that you could potentially still visit, but this week's potential Travesty or Triumph existed for only a brief period of six months in 1893, even though it had taken three years, 28 million dollars, and over forty thousand laborers to construct it. Yes, as you guessed, today's Thursday Travesty or Triumph is the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago. (It was named the Colombian Exposition because it was intended to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the New World, although it was a year late). I think it will be hard for anyone to argue that the space is an aesthetic tragedy, so what I was thinking the question would be is more along the lines of whether constructing it but only leaving it up for six months is a Travesty or a Triumph (see Christo (i.e Gates in Central Park) perhaps for a contemporary comparison?).

From May to October of 1893, an estimated 27.5 million people visited the Colombian Exposition, which gave it a far greater impact on our nation's psyche than its brief existence might suggest. The painting at right (click for a larger version) was completed in 1894 by Theodore Robinson, an American Impressionist -- I think it gives you a better impression of what the space was like than most photographs do. Contemporary visitors were awestruck by the cleanliness and serenity of the massive exposition, which occupied 633 acres and had 14 main buildings with total floor space of 63 million square feet. The whiteness of the architecture (which was intentionally temporary and consisted basically of skeletons with facades) presented an extreme contrast to the grimy grays and blacks of contemporary industrialized cities like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York. The choice of white as a paint color was intended to speed up the construction of the Exposition originally, but was so well received by the architects that the use of coal as a power source was banned at the Exposition so that the purity of the white would be preserved. At night, 120,000 incandescent lights lit the Exposition and reflected off the water of the Grand Basin -- a display that must have been incredible to its first viewers, as the Colombian Exposition was the first significant deployment of outdoor electric lighting in the United States.

The Colombian Exposition's demonstration of a unified Beaux-Arts vision for city planning led directly to adoption of the Beaux-Arts style across the United States in the first decade of the 20th century, so perhaps the style (particularly of the Court of Honor) seems rather familiar to modern Americans, who are used to seeing echoes of that architecture, particularly in Washington, where the revival of baroque principles in the Beaux-Arts style led to the renovation of DC's landscape.

I could go on and on about the Colombian Exposition because I find it fascinating, but in the interests of my final projects finishing before they are due, I think I will simply refer you to a couple of my sources: "The World's Colombian Exposition", "Interactive Guide to the World's Colombian Exposition", and a book, Devil in the White City, which I have not read but have heard is excellent from several classmates and a pair of teachers.

Posted by eatingbark at January 6, 2006 10:48 AM