How often do you think about the 1893 World's Fair?(thebirthofacapital.info) |
How often do you think about the 1893 World's Fair?(thebirthofacapital.info) |
Definitely a good read though, and a book I've recommended to a few friends.
I personally love walking the grounds when I visit, imagining what it must’ve been.
The art museum is in a remodeled building that sits on the top of the same hill overlooking the pond. What it looks like now: https://nohomejustroam.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/St-Lou...
Those world's fairs were something else.
Another one would be 1851, the year of the first world fair in London. The old fairs would already be awesome for a modern visitor, but I can't imagine what the people living then must have felt, seeing things like electricity for the first time.
I can't visit them, but I did at least dedicate 2 chapters of my game to the 1851 one: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3040110/Outsider/
Recently, I visited Budapest and read a book with the same name by Victor Sebestyen.
One critical topic stood out: "Budapest, the city, was rebuilt significantly in the two decades leading up to 1896 for a World Exhibition marking 1000 years of the country."
It was not a proper world fair, but we can call it so.
Since then, the same question has been running through my mind: what happened to world fairs, and why don't we have more of these?
Operationally, it gives me chills to imagine a "concert/festival" [in today's terminology] of such scale being pulled off across months.
We do, just not every year. [0]
Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany, was a very big deal. The tram/metro/bus system of this 500k pop city was significantly improved. Infrastructure was modernized.
At the exhibition you could visit very creative pavilions that tried to capture something like a national spirit (or whatever the national committee wanted to represent as such). Switzerland and Japan were my favourites. [1] The former fair grounds and some structures built specifically for Expo 2000 are still being used today for events [2].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_fair#World_Expos_2
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2000#Pavilions and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2000#Gallery
[2]: https://expowal-hannover.de/It would have been a fascinating time to be alive, even with all the hardships and diseases. Hard as hell though.
Thank god time travel does not exist. I would hate to think of the idea of anyone being able to go back.
Prohibition also seemed like an interesting time to be alive. Not so much the Prohibition part, just the general other things going on on the planet at the time.
It's disappointing that the two promised movies around the events of Devil in the White City still have not come to pass. One was supposed to feature Tom Cruise in the role of Holmes, and the other Leonardo diCaprio.
I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1510713433/ref=as_li_qf_sp...?
In next week's post I am actually going to discuss the way the fair is considered the beginning of certain ideas (in urban planning specificalyl) that already existed—but maybe need a big white puffy outfit to truly debut.