The History of World Expositions |
The New York World Exposition 1939 & 1940
Around the Lagoon of Nations the nation pavilions were grouped representing two architectural styles: radical Classicism with hardly any ornament at all – preferred by countries with authoritarian regimes because of its monumentality – and International Style Modernism with clear forms. The Soviet pavilion by Boris Iofan, who had also designed the surprisingly similar predecessor pavilion for the Paris World Exhibition in 1937, represented the first style. Two dynamically forward pushing blocs of marble and granite connected with two arcades enclosed a yard of honour in which an eighty metres high pylon stood carrying a steel statue of a labourer with a glowing red star in his raised right hand. Only a few countries could afford a truly modern pavilion like Finland. Alvar Alto developed his Paris design further with freely suspended wavelike wood panels in the interior. The British pavilion by Stanley Hall was rather undecided but in that also representative for the contribution of many countries. The white curving walls, the oblique supports, the suspended roof of the portico and the curving staircases were reminiscent of Le Corbusier avant-garde architecture. But combined with a monumental entrance hall the architectural language shifted to rigid representation. |
||||||||||||
EXPOSEEUM - The Museum of World Exhibitions, Hanover, Expo Plaza 11 Open every Sunday from 11 to 16 |
||||||||||||