World's Fairs

New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Format is approximately 9 inches by 12 inches. [6], 260 pages. Illustrations (some in color). Maps. Bibliography. Index. World's Fairs have always motivated architects, artists, and designers to create the exceptional. The Eiffel Tower, the Crystal Palace, and the Seattle Space Needle are all products of World's Fairs. Yet many of these splendid structures have been woefully consigned to oblivion. This book highlights, arranged chronologically, all the major exhibitions from London in 1851, Montreal in 1967, to Hanover in the year 2000, including their most important pavilions and other architectural creations, using original plans, design studies, period photographs, and ephemera such as programs and postcards. It presents more than three hundred illustrations. The codes regulating world's fairs were prepared in 1928 and officially set down at a 1931 Paris conference attended by thirty-one nations (but not the United States). That same year, the supranational organization Bureau International des expositions (BIE) was founded to establish the dates and locations of future fairs and to broadly oversees their planning and organizations, insuring that they met the organization's rules and requirements. As showcases of design, architecture, technology, industry, and politics, world's fairs have served as overviews of society's accomplishments as well as barometers of our optimism about the future. They have captured the imagination of the hundreds of millions of people who attend them, and are ongoing objects of fascination, as witnessed by the collectibles, web sites, histories, and memoirs that surround them. World's Fairs looks back on 150 years of looking forward. Surprisingly, this is the first illustrated history of all major exhibitions, from the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in London in 1851 to the upcoming fair in Hanover in 2000. In all, 27 fairs are detailed through their histories, structures, and graphics. While many of the products and ideas promoted at past fairs never materialized, many became commonplace: television, for example, was first shown at the 1939 New York fair. Similarly, while many buildings and landscapes built for fairs have become worldwide icons-the Eiffel Tower, the Crystal Palace, the Barcelona Pavilion, the Seattle Space Needle, the Buckminster Fuller dome in Montreal-hundreds of splendid structures have been forgotten. World's Fairs uses original plans, design studies, period photographs, and ephemera such as programs and postcards to recreate the visual richness, color, and excitement of world's fairs. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: World Fair, Exposition, Architecture, Design, Crystal Palace, Unisphere, Eiffel Tower, Mies van der Rohe

ISBN: 1568981325

[Book #85633]

Price: $100.00

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