Designing Tomorrow

REMAINS OF THE 1939-40 NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR 

The New York City building (now the Queens Museum of Art) was the only building designed to outlast the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair. It is pictured in the top photograph just to the right of the Trylon and Perisphere, and in the bottom photograph from 1967, just to the left of the Unisphere and to the right of the Grand Central Parkway.

In addition to rotating exhibitions, the Queens Museum houses the Panorama—a model of New York City designed for the 1964-1965 fair that was no doubt inspired by the earlier fair’s Futurama - the vision for the future city circa 1960.

WORLD’S FAIR RELICS

From Pete Brook’s Wired article,”Trippy World’s Fair Structures Are Relics of Forgotten Utopias”:

“Instead of cruising news feeds on your smartphone to learn about the latest technology, what if you had to wait years for the fair to come to town? For almost 150 years, that’s exactly how innovation came to much of the global public via the World’s Fair.

From purpose-built pavilions that stretch architectural norms, the human race experienced the wonderment of X-rays, Belgian waffles, alternating current, clothing zippers and ice cream for the first time. Today, the biggest news to come out of the World’s Fair is that it still exists.

“When the first World’s Fair opened in London, countries competed to outdo one another with their pavilion buildings. They really were over-the-top events,” says Jade Doskow, a New York photographer, who has spent six years travelling the globe to dozens of former World’s Fair sites. There have been nearly 100 fairs since that first one in 1851.

You know more World’s Fair structures than you think: Seattle’s Space Needle, the Eiffel Tower, Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, Mies Van Der Rohe’s German Pavilion in Berlin (albeit reconstructed) and that big globe in Queens, New York from Notorious B.I.G.’s Mo Money Mo Problems music video.

Usually built for temporary use, World’s Fairs’ buildings tend to be torn down after the event. In cases where structures have survived, Doskow has routinely photographed sites that do not tally with their former grandeur and optimism; they stand as relics to utopian visions of the past.”

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/11/jade-doskow-worlds-fairs/?pid=4273

Check back tomorrow for images of the only remaining building from the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

The Trylon and Perisphere that Weren’t

Before there was the pure geometry of the towering triangular Trylon and its spherical counterpart, the Perisphere, Hugh Ferriss imagined a theme center that looked more like a skyscraper built in the center of a coliseum. (See top image.)

Retailers even began to manufacture souvenirs using this early design. Collector Mark Milano has the following to say about the handkerchief, pictured above:

“I bought this handkerchief for just a few dollars on eBay. When it arrived
 I was surprised to find that it did not feature the Trylon and Perisphere, but rather the original, discarded Theme Center concept. Since this would never have been sold at the fair, I realized it must be quite rare - and indeed I have never seen another one. If the seller knew what she had, she might have asked a much higher price!”  

Collector Profile: Mark Milano

What sparked your interest in collecting items from the New York World’s Fair?
I fell in love with the 1939 New York World’s Fair back in the ’80s.  There was a great shop in Chicago called “Wheel & Deal” that sold 20th century antiques at very reasonable prices.  I noticed a Bakelite pencil sharpener (pictured above) and thought it was just beautiful.  So clean and elegant. I tried to find more items, but there was little in Chicago,

When I moved to NYC in 1987, I found much more - at outrageous prices!  The glasses in the large picture of my collection were priced at $65 apiece!  At my film assistant salary, I could never afford any of it, so I would go into shops like “Mood Indigo” in Soho (now closed) and just drool.

Then came eBay.  Wow - all the World’s Fair stuff I wanted, and cheap!  I got the entire set of those six glasses I had coveted for years for $75 total - and the seller actually hand-delivered them from New Jersey.  I went kinda nuts for the next two years, searching every day for things I wanted. 

What are your favorite pieces in the collection?
I’m fortunate that I’m not a completist.  I’m only interested in items that are well-designed - and a lot of souvenirs are not.  I bought around a hundred objects and about the same amount of paper items, and I found I had pretty much everything I wanted.  The other collectibles were just not that interesting, so I stopped.  I think my favorite piece is the red Bakelite napkin holder.  For beauty of design, it can’t be beat.  My favorite pavilion is the Sealtest building - what nerve they had! 

Where do you store your collection?

I store the objects in a too-small shelf, but about ten of them are a part of my “art moderne” living room. I store the paper items in a in a number of sleeved binders.

Thoughts on World’s Fairs that followed the “world of tomorrow”:
As I studied the fair, I was more and more impressed with their overall commitment to design - something I found lacking in other fairs.  Certainly the ‘64 Fair, which I was aware of as a child (though not able to attend), had none of the unifying design concepts that make the ‘39 fair so impressive.  Watching films of the fair and even finding stereoscopic slides really made me wish I’d been able to attend.

I’d never been to a World’s Fair, so my boyfriend and I went to Expo 2010 Shanghai.  It was massive, and many of the pavilions were beautiful, but the fairgrounds themselves were dismal.  It felt like someone just plopped a bunch of buildings in a big asphalt parking lot.  No landscaping, poor layout, and definitely no unifying design theme.  But the pavilions were what I had hoped for: that wonderful blend of capitalism in the guise of education.  The GM exhibit showed us the car of the future, and I couldn’t help but think of Futurama as I watched.

World’s Fairs present a glowing picture of the past and present, and a wonderfully optimistic vision of the future.  We all know it’s marketing hype, but when it’s done so well and looks so good it makes you believe for just a few minutes.

(More items from Mark’s collection tomorrow … )

Futurama!!!
Before there was the cartoon there was the ride in the General Motors Pavilion, designed by Norman Bel Geddes. In Bel Geddes’ own words, found in his 1940 book, Magic Motorways:

“In long queues that often stretch for more than a mile, from 5,000 to 15,000 men, women and children at a time, stood, all day long every day, under the hot sun and in the rain, waiting more than an hour for their turn to get a sixteen-minute glimpse at the motorways of the world of tomorrow.”

You can read the whole book here (courtesy of Internet Archive):

http://archive.org/stream/magicmotorways00geddrich#page/n7/mode/2up

Remnant of the New York World’s Fair: King Jagiello

“The statue was originally featured at the entrance to the Polish pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair of Flushing Meadows, Queens. Later that year, the Nazis invaded Poland, preventing the sculpture’s return to its homeland. In 1945, it was placed in Central Park by the Polish government as a symbol of the proud and courageous Polish people. It portrays King Jagiello, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, who united Lithuania and Poland and became king after marrying the Queen of Poland in 1386. The monument depicts the moment at the Battle of Grunewald of 1410 when the King crossed over his head the two swords handed to him by his adversaries, the Teutonic Knights of the Cross.

Under the watchful eyes of King Jagiello, the blue stone circle at the east end of Turtle Pond is the site of weekend international folk dance gatherings.”

(http://www.centralparknyc.org/visit/things-to-see/great-lawn/king-jagiello.html)

World’s Fair Memories: Peter Hayward on Frisbee, Major League players and prewritten postcards at the 1964-65 fair

I was twelve years old when the 1964 World’s Fair opened. In retrospect it couldn’t have been a more perfect age for appreciating it. I live in the Northwest Hills of Connecticut but my Dad was from Long Island and we were frequent travelers to Long Island to visit relatives.  Consequently it was no big deal for Mom, Dad and me to drive down to Flushing right after the fair started. Of my six trips to the fair this visit was by far the most crowded. We only got into five or six pavilions all day.   We waited in line for what seemed like an eternity to get into the GM Pavilion to see Futurama. The fair was hot and the place was packed. It made no difference. After the first experience I was hooked.

During a visit to the little heralded or remembered Better Living Pavilion I saw my very first Frisbee. There was a demonstration featuring two champion Frisbee throwers. They attracted quite a crowd. I would be curious to know if this was the debut of the Frisbee.

Another thing I remember about the fair is that one could spot Major League Baseball players coming over after a game at Shea. Sometimes they would have some baseball apparel on and sometimes not but if you knew the players as I did you could usually spot some of them.

I remember being enthralled by some shows and totally disappointed in others that had had good write-ups. Everyone seemed to rave about the movies at IBM & Johnson’s Wax and I thought that both were colossal bores. One pavilion I loved was The Tower of Light. Some more really good ones were the GE Carousal of Progress (good robots), The Coca Cola Pavilion (nice fragrances), and the Dupont Pavilion (good demonstration of the miracles of chemistry). Being in my early teens at the time of my World’s Fair visits I hated the Pepsi Cola “It’s A Small World” boat ride designed by Walt Disney. To this day I cannot get that stupid song out of my head.

I kept a small World Fair Diary that I picked up at the Equitable Pavilion. Thankfully I made entries in it to help remember my day. At age 13 I was at the fair myself. That is probably a practice that parents wouldn’t allow now in New York (and perhaps it wasn’t a good idea even then!). Still I think that the 1960’s were a safer time than now.    

Now I would like to nominate what I think was the worst pavilion at the 1964-65 World’s Fair. It would have to be the Alaska Pavilion. Granted that Alaska probably did not have a lot of money to spend on their pavilion in those pre-oil pipeline days, but even so they did a pretty dismal job. There was nothing much to see and a whole lot for sale.  Thankfully I saved the postcard they handed out. The space for writing was already filled out for you extolling the wonders of the Alaska Pavilion. I don’t think that before or since have I ever seen a post card with a pre-written message that was intended to be sent to dear ones.    

World’s Fair Memories: Peter Hayward of New Hartford, Connecticut talks about his mother’s connection to Billy Rose’s Aquacade.

I was born in 1951.  I grew up with stories of the 1939 World’s Fair from both my parents and older relatives and friends.  One of my prize possessions is a program of Billy Rose’s Aquacade from the 1940 fair.  My parents were married in the fall of 1939.  My mother was a swimmer and a great fan of the famous female swimmer Gertrude Ederle.   It was to see Gertrude, I am sure, that Mom talked my father into going to see the show.

Check back tomorrow for Peter’s memories of and memorabilia from his own trip to the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.