World’s Fairs are probably the most important modern phenomenon that you’ve never heard about. World’s Fairs were the way people learned about new ideas and products, before there was an internet. The Eiffel Tower made its debut at the Paris Exposition of 1889. The Ferris Wheel appeared at Chicago in 1893. President William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo in 1900. Walt Disney’s “it’s a small world” ride made its debut in New York in 1964. Incubators were on display, as were people in deeply problematic ethnic villages. Chicago’s World Fair, better known as the Columbian Exposition of 1893, was a cultural, artistic, economic, and political watershed; over 27 million visitors, or nearly half of the United States’ population, visited the fair; it had a lasting impact on countless aspects of American life, no more so than in the realm of architecture. This project examines how the architecture of ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt were vital elements in the creative toolbox of America’s leading architects when constructing these ephemeral worlds. Architects of Chicago (1893), Nashville (1897), Omaha (1898), St. Louis (1904), and San Francisco (1915) reinterpreted ancient architecture in order to demonstrate the modernity and sophistication of the United States, as well as the unique identities of these individual cities. To learn more about this project, please follow my Instagram and keep an eye out for my book on this subject (under contract with Cambridge University Press for the Classics After Antiquity Series).
Chicago