Map of the 1900 Exposition

What are the ideals for the architecture of a World’s Fair, where the hosting country has an opportunity to announce its technological ability and national character to the world? Hitchcock's 1936 review Exposition Architecture offers some categories for success: he advocates deceptively simple criteria such as a "well-ordered overall plan," application of construction programs on a large scale previously "incapable of being realized," and, taking "full advantage of architectural possibilities inherent in metal, glass and plaster." The previous Expositions Universelles held in Paris attract his attention, and he looks with favor on the "cold but well-proportioned Neo-Grec style" of the Paris 1855 exposition building, the "festive and appropriate treatment" Eiffel gave to the long metal gallery of Paris in 1878, built in relation to the "magnificent city-planning schemes of the eighteenth century," and other fairs that, on a scale small or large, achieve an excellent harmony in decoration and layout. Notably, however, the 1925 exposition fails in his eyes, as its decorative program overwhelms its few quality contributions in small scale architecture.  

          This short demonstration of priorities illustrates the challenge of adequately measuring the success of a fair’s total architectural environment in cases where, though it may lack a central feature, improvements to a city are judged to be a representative of social and technological advancement. This in particular was the strength of the 1900 Paris Exhibition, whose architectural contributions were restricted to the construction of two beaux-arts pavilions and the Alexander bridge. (43 Campbell)

The 1900 Paris Exposition spanned a massive area of land compared to earlier exhibitions. Pushing well past the Champ de Mars landscape still featuring the 1889 Eiffel Tower, the 1900 Exposition pushed down the Seine into the Esplanade des Invalides, installed a new bridge to cross the Seine and erect a plaza of fine arts, and finally bedecked this main artery with national pavilions and a reconstruction of old France. Finally, the Trocadero plaza, formerly preserved a park and rest area, was built up into a series of individual national displays of the colonies of European nations that hoped to demonstrate the social success of the colonial enterprise by providing unique stereotyped cultural experiences. This construction project was largely unified by an overhaul to the extant architecture by means of installing Neo-classical facades on the numerous exhibition halls on each plaza.

Palace of Various Industries

 In the Galerie des Machines, an entirely new decorative rotunda was built in the center of its massive space, blocking the view of arches and connections in the iron structure and demonstrating a complete disregard for materially determined decoration in Paris at the time. Likewise, the1900 Paris exposition is known for the introduction of the art nouveau style in fashion, architecture, and consumer goods, and was a predominant style unifying purchasable goods among French and other European exhibitions throughout the fair. This most notably occurred in the Pavilion of Art Nouveau by Siegfried Bing, which displayed interior furniture, interior décor, and external architecture in a coherent presentation of the art nouveau style. Photographs from the 1900 exposition give, on the whole, a strong impression of a unity of imposing external design.

These total decorative environment encompassing the exposition was mixed with the fair’s contemporary focus on social technology, such as the colonial projects mentioned above and the new electric and transportation systems discussed in the next entry. The fair’s most iconic buildings integrate an experience of decorative forms saturated with electric power, as in the case of the Porte Monumental and the Palace of Illusions. The Porte Monumental, adoring the North Eastern entrance to the fair ground, is loosely considered an art nouveau structure; its sweeping, arched interior was adorned with minarets of uncertain origin (“Hindu, Meican, even Siamese art” writes a confused Campbell p 44), decorated in turn with a “kind of classic rose,” at the heart of which was an electric light. Thousands of these organic forms marked the cresting structure. 

The Palace of Illusions was a popular attraction lined with glass panels and building on the use of mirrors to enlarge space throughout the city of Paris. It too is representative of 1900's numerous efforts to merge technological innovations in glass, decorative materials, and new social technologies with architectural and urban paradigms.   

The Palace of Illusions was sponsored by the company Saint-Gobain, responsible for 90% of the world's mirrors at that time, to demonstrate their new capacity for making clear mirrors in broad sheets that could be assembled to span the length of walls. Eugene Herard's architectural program the six walls of the hexagonal structure to give the "illusion of hundreds of halls extending endlessly in all directions." The walls were separated by six Corinthian columns and supported by six arches lit with three thousand electric bulbs, thus combining classical reference with explicit overtures to modern luxury and convenience. It was found on the first campus of the exposition, in close proximity to the Palace of Diverse Industries (also bedecked with a thousand clusters of electric lights Campbell 44) and to the entrance to the fair.

            While the 1900 Exposition Universelle lacked the ostentatious architectural displays of previous exhibitions: it pushes no limits in the size or capacity of architecture, or in the possibilities of architectural materials. However, through the use of decorative programs and electric lighting, it did convert the exhibition grounds into a unified image of technological and social advancement.