The World’s Fair
Athena, the ancient Greek warrior goddess, was never believed to have set foot in Tennessee. But her likeness certainly did. Modern-day Nashville hosts a life-size recreation of Athena’s statue inside of a full-size recreation of the original Parthenon. The oracles of old Olympia could never have predicted that an American city famous for its music and barbecue would one day roleplay as a budget Athens, yet here we are. Today, it doubles as an art museum. A curious business traveler may rightfully be forgiven for misattributing the Parthenon’s presence in Nashville to the Tennesseans’ fondness for Greek mythology, because the less-dramatic reality is that it was built for the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, or that year’s name for the World’s Fair (also known as the Universal Exhibition or World Expo).
A curious conglomeration of geopolitics and glitz, The World’s Fair has been continually held every year (or more recently, every few years) for over two centuries, making it one of the longest lasting international traditions that has outlasted the many transitions of nations from feudalist societies to theocratic ideologies, military dictatorships to imperialist colonization, and class-based monarchies to populist republics. Europe hosted several of the early World’s Fairs to commemorate national events along with an exposition showcasing each nation’s achievements. These fairs were held for several months at a time, allowing plenty of time for the word to spread across aristocratic European societies and converting far-off admirers to would-be visitors. As it grew in scale and scope over the decades, many nations started participating as a way to build a national identity on the international stage. The event gradually made its way into other continents, allowing culture, ideas, and scientific-technological achievements to quickly spread across the world in a rapidly globalizing era.
Throughout the 1800s, the themes of the World’s Fairs revolved around scientific progress. Daguerrotypes, telescopes, and even the telephone were all first shown off at a World’s Fair. It was the go-to place to learn about new inventions and the latest advances in gadgetry. The 1851 World’s Fair in London was a landmark moment for Britain where it showcased the most precious treasures from the empire along with breakthrough innovations in machinery, textiles, and warfare. Most impressive of all was the setting where it all happened: The Crystal Palace, a massive sprawling building made of glass reflecting all the splendor and riches of the kingdom. The entire structure was purpose-built for the exhibition and saw a third of Britain’s entire population inside its resplendent interior over the course of the fair. The whole building was so extraordinary that it was fully moved to a new location after the fair, where it stood until it was completely destroyed by a fire in 1936.
The 1889 World’s Fair in Paris takes credit for the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the tallest tower in the world at the time of construction. It was never meant to be a permanent structure but instead one just to stand out as a centerpiece spectacle amidst the fair. The builders of the tower cleverly planned its footprint to exist within the city of Paris and not on the outskirts where the land was military-owned, ensuring that the city had an incentive to preserve it after the fair. This particular iteration of the the World’s Fair was boycotted by several monarchist nations as it celebrated the downfall of the French monarchy. Despite the boycott, it was a smashing success, playing host to the reveal of several important inventions like the Otis elevator, Edison’s phonograph, and the Bell telephone.
The United States had its moment with the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. It celebrated American exceptionalism and the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World. This wasn’t the first World’s Fair the United States had hosted, but it was certainly the most spectacular one. It was so grandiose and over-the-top that it completely reset expectations of what a World’s Fair should be. An entire mini-city was created for the fair in the neoclassical Beaux-Arts style with several magnificent buildings painted with white facades. Nicknamed The White City, it served as a stark juxtaposition to the dark racial undercurrents that were plaguing the nation throughout the century. Historians pinpoint this moment in time as one where America’s ongoing racial attitudes towards non-whites became cemented in an ethnological foundation for how the nation treats people of color.
Despite their pomp and splendor, all the World’s Fairs in this era were practically overflowing with the white colonizer’s perspective on the world. These fairs would frequently feature tribal people from the colonies as part of “human zoo” exhibits, where their so-called savagery and supposed brutality were on display to white fair-goers. The people with abnormal or deformed body parts would forcibly be made to perform “freak shows” for the amusement of white audiences. Since most of the World’s Fairs were financed by industry titans and political will, they also doubled as convenient propaganda in garnering public goodwill for increasing industrial expansion through colonization and spreading the doctrine of order to the “uncivilized world” outside the European empires.
In the twentieth century, a rapidly globalizing world and the advent of air travel transformed the World’s Fair into the international stage for cultural showcases and exchanges. Paris hosted the 1900 World’s Fair, capitalizing on the growing popularity of the Eiffel Tower as a central landmark by creating even more new structures like the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais to host pavilions, both of which still stand as popular tourist attractions in the city today. These palaces were created in the Art Nouveau style of architecture that took inspiration from natural forms for proportions and ornamentation. Floral ironwork, curving stairways, and decorative entryways became staples of these buildings’ interiors and cemented Paris as the artistic and architectural capital of the world. The fair also featured several “colonial pavilions” where European empires like Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands re-created buildings in the architectural styles of their crown colonies in the far-east to show off their prime possessions.
This Exposition Universelle in Paris also debuted several breakthrough innovations like escalators, travelators, diesel cars, electric cars, and even the earliest motion pictures. It showed the world how to truly exhibit innovations with a level of glamour and spectacle that wasn’t common in World’s Fairs before. Large set pieces with imposing titles like The Water Castle and the Palace of Electricity hosted thematic innovations and provided ample entertainment opportunities, once again raising the bar for what a World’s Fair should be like.
The United States hosted the next World’s Fair in 1904 in St. Louis, themed around a centennial celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Wireless telephones, fax machines, and X-ray machines made their public debut at this fair. It also popularized showcasing new automobiles and even hosted an airplane contest where an airship was publicly flown for the first time, giving St. Louis the nickname “Flight City” and leading to several breakthroughs in aviation technology.
The St. Louis fair’s thematic elements drew heavy criticism, as it seemingly centered around celebrating US imperialism and growing world dominance. It continued the practice of human exhibits where over a thousand Filipinos were displayed at the fair to demonstrate the prized possessions of the United States’ newly-annexed-but-still-unincorporated territory of the Philiipines. The Filipinos fought US annexation and were then trafficked to this World’s Fair in terrible conditions to be shown to fair attendees. The mistreatment and dehumanization of these Filipinos led to the deaths of several of them at the fair itself, where several bodies had to be transported off the fair grounds to maintain the menacing veil of imperialist US decorum in St. Louis.
San Francisco hosted the World’s Fair in 1915, titled the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with the theme of celebrating the completion of the Panama Canal, but the city also leveraged the fair as an opportunity to show its quick rebound after the devastating 1906 earthquake that leveled most of the city. An entire complex of grand European buildings were constructed for the exhibition in the Presidio neighborhood, with Parisian-influenced names like the Tower of Jewels, the Fountain of Energy, and the famous Palace of Fine-Arts, which still stands today and is the only remaining structure from this set of buildings. The French pavilion in this World’s Fair was fully reconstructed after the exhibition and today serves as the Legion of Honor. While grand in scale and splendor, the exhibition glamorized the conquest of Native Americans and played into America’s self-aggrandizing themes of Manifest Destiny by portraying the apparently fated demise of Native American culture and people.
Several major cities and former hosts continued hosting the World’s Fair in the twentieth century, but the United States had an domineering effect on the rest of the world given the massive strides it made in infrastructural and economic developments in the early twentieth century. Chicago hosted a pivotal World’s Fair again in 1933 themed the Century of Progress, and New York hosted an even more important World’s Fair in 1939 themed The Word of Tomorrow that focused on revitalizing the city’s economy amidst The Great Depression and the start of World War II. Albert Einstein gave a speech in the opening ceremony of the New York World’s Fair and even wrote a message that got put into the Westinghouse Time Capsule to be opened by the “people” of the seventh millennia in the year 6900.
Seattle hosted the next most important World’s Fair in 1962. Themed Living in the Space Age, the exhibition went all-in on space exploration to showcase the breadth and scope of US investments in scientific technologies following the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. The World’s Fair tried to strengthen the already faltering public faith in the United States’ inability to keep up with the Soviets in the Space Race. Boasting exhibits like the World of Science and The World of Century 21, the exhibition showcased a techno-optimist utopia that promised mankind’s dominance over automation and robots that would simplify our domestic lives while broadening social equity. Seattle’s iconic Space Needle was constructed for this fair, along with the high-speed monorail that gave attendees a glimpse of speedy inter-city travel that would be a staple everywhere in the next century. Futurism and consumer gadgetry took center stage at this fair, seeding public curiosity about space and the technological future that awaited them at the turn of the century.
The rest of the twentieth century saw several major world cities host World’s Fairs. A recurring theme is the construction of specific buildings or landmarks that outlast their purpose in the fair and become permanent landmarks of the cityscape over time. In addition to the ones mentioned in specific World’s Fairs above, the Plaza de España in Seville, the Tower of the Sun in Osaka, the Biosphere in Montreal, the Unisphere in New York, the Sunphere in Knoxville, and the Skyneedle in Brisbane are all just a few more examples of structures that were made for a World’s Fair that the city hosted. The unique structures gave cities a prominent skyline-defining landmark that they wouldn’t otherwise have, and they still remain today as the most impactful legacy to come out of these cities hosting the World’s Fairs.
There were ancillary benefits to hosting the World’s Fair too. Many cities fast-tracked major infrastructural projects relating to public transit, expansion of green spaces, changes to zoning laws that allowed for more flexibility, and investing in new modes of transport to portray an aura of modernism to fair attendees before the fair began. After the fairs closed, many of the sites were transformed into public parks for residents to enjoy, like Jackson Park in Chicago and Riverfront Park in Spokane. These too would likely not exist had the will for displaying international superiority not existed in the organizing committees for these fairs.
By the end of the century, World’s Fairs were being so commonplace and held so frequently that they began to lose their appeal. The proliferation of the radio and television allowed news to spread so fast that having a dedicated fair devoted to displaying advancements in the world began to feel rudimentary and unnecessary. The 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans was the first World’s Fair to declare bankruptcy during its run due to low attendance, waving a big red flag for the future of the event. Chicago, the host of multiple high-profile World’s Fairs in the past, was to co-host the 1992 World’s Fair in conjunction with Seville, Spain, to commemorate the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ voyage to the Americas. Chicago ended up pulling out of the event due to funding issues and Seville hosted the fair independently. The 2000 World’s Fair held in Hanover, Germany, saw less than half of its expected 40 million attendees at the event, resulting in a financial failure that spelled the demise of World’s Fair in the twenty-first century.
Today, World’s Fair are still hosted every other year or so, but are typically a more specialized exposition rather than the all-encompassing range of science, culture, and innovation that they once were. The identity of modern day World’s Fairs have also shifted from one of cultural exchange and technological demonstration to one of national branding. World’s Fairs in the twentieth century are primarily a means for various nations to establish a sense of identity and national heritage in the modern era. The fairs are more popular today in Europe and Asia, as national identity is of more importance in continents with many different countries competing against each other in their regional economy.
The United States, once a dominant host of World’s Fairs in the last century, lost interest in hosting them once they established themselves as the world’s leading superpower in the post-Cold War era. It had nothing more to prove to the world or its own citizens when the world already recognized it as technologically advanced and economically dominant. Domestically, this led to a stalling of any major infrastructural investments to improve the lives of residents. There were no massive construction efforts to build sprawling plazas or infuse a lot of cash to build out a new metro system. There were no more iconic public spaces being planned or built since there was no one left to impress. The US did put out a bid to have Bloomington, Minnesota host the 2017 and 2027 World’s Fairs, but lost out on both those bids, leading to a World’s Fair drought in the country since the last one they hosted in 1985.
Another big factor in the downfall of the World’s Fair is the Olympics, which have taken center stage as the most relevant international event for nation-mingling. With televised broadcasts raking in millions from sponsorships, they’re also far more profitable to participate in. The Olympics have their fair share of issues for host nations that require the construction of venues and stadiums which end up being more difficult to re-purpose or re-use than ones constructed for World’s Fairs, but as a whole, they have certainly cemented themselves as the international event that runs in the background on our living room TVs once every four years, doomed to serve as conversation starters about curling and synchronized swimming.
Looking back today, the World’s Fairs of the past were somewhat of a rare spark in human history. In a time when physically traveling was so demanding and time-consuming, it’s impressive that so many of the World’s Fairs managed to draw attendees from all over the world. They were all extremely problematic when it came to colonialism, racism, and dehumanizing the non-Western world, but they did manage to evolve and change as times changed. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the World’s Fairs of the past is how they painted a unified theme of something for everyone to look forward to in the future, something that’s sorely missing today.
While it may be fun to watch countries compete against each other in strange sports for a few days every four years, it’s not really doing much to instill global confidence in where we’re collectively heading as a species the way the World’s Fairs did. The Baby Boomer generation today that attended the Century 21 World’s Fair in Seattle in 1962 as kids likely had a very different outlook on the future than the kids of today do about their futures. Technological and lifestyle advancements are partially to blame for some of it, and a bleak sense of world-ending dystopia fueled by climate change inaction, the rapid rise of authoritarianism in nearly every country, and the breakneck pace of computing innovation leading to challenges like misinformation, artificial intelligence, and regulations crawling to keep up is to blame for the majority of it. Either way, the current state of things in the twenty first century has led to a few generations that don’t believe the future will get better but will instead continue to get worse. Maybe a modern reimagining of the World’s Fair is exactly what we need today to rebuild some hope and optimism about what our lives hold in the future.