World's Fairs

As showcases of design architecture technology industry and politics worlds fairs have served as overviews of societys 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. Worlds 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. Worlds Fairs uses original plans design studies period photo-graphs and ephemera such as programs and postcards to recreate the visual richness color and excitement of worlds fairs. The fairs include: London 1851; Paris 1867; Vienna 1873 ; Philadelphia 1876; Paris 1878 ; Sydney 1879; Amsterdam 1883; Antwerp 1885 ; Paris 1889 ; Chicago 1893 ; Paris 1900; Turin 1902; Brussels 1910; San Francisco 1915; Paris 1925; Barcelona 1929; Antwerp 1930; Brussels 1935; Paris 1937; New York 1939; Brussels 1958; New York 1964; Montreal 1967; Osaka 1970; Seville 1992; and Hanover 2000