The Clear Span Architecural Rivalry at the Exposition

With modern architecture on the rise it was only fitting for rivalries to spring from architectural structures. Some of the most significant architectural feats of the late-nineteenth-century came from immense clear spans made from iron and glass. When these spans started to reach daring sizes, it was only natural for competition to spark.

The architectural rivalries of the International Expositions originated in the Great Exposition of 1851 in London. The first of the long line of incredible glass and iron spans was the Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace (constructed in 1851 for the exposition, and re-constructed in 1854), designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, was a huge iron structure with over a million feet of glass. The whole structure was massive, standing strong at 1,848 feet long and 408 feet wide.[1] The Palace was revolutionary in that it achieved sizes that were un-heard of with innovative materials. The Crystal Palace would start a chain of enormous spans. These spans would become a way of showing industrial strength, and competing with other countries.

The Crystal Palace

Palais Des Machines

Close to the end of the century, the spans of two buildings, one from the 1889 Centennial Exposition in Paris, and the other from the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, were far greater than ever before. However, the explicit rivalry of the two expositions has been overlooked. There were several reasons for this. One was because of the great deal of talk that preceded the realization of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. During the early months of planning, there were short-lived schemes proposed in a spirit of structural rivalry in Paris. Many typical proposals were those for a tent-like enclosure 3000 inches in diameter, and a tower more that 1000 inches high (to surpass Eiffel’s tower). None of these plans were built. Also, the measurements of the span of the Machinery Palace at Paris and the span of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building at Chicago have "languished in a limbo of uncertainty."[2] As well, unfortunately both structures have been demolished leaving no definite evidence of dimensions for either structure. However, a corrected half-section of the Machinery Palace, for which Dutert was the architect, established the half-span at 55.50m, thus making the entire span 111m or 364’2".[3] Octave Chanute was sent by the Chicago committee for the Fair to Paris to visit the exposition. When speaking of the Palais des Machines, he stated, " I need not tell you that this is the widest span of roof ever erected and that this noble building was well worthy of the grand prize which it received as the most novel and remarkable object in the exposition."[4] Because of the construction of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building would be a difficult task.

With a difficult task at hand, the Fair was ready to focus all its attention on building a span greater than that of the Palais des Machines. By March 1891, it was announced that the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building would be the largest building of the Fair, and the span would be 370 feet. Chicago was anything but reluctant to boast about the structure. One guidebook to the Fair stated, quite inaccurately, "The Machinery Hall of the Paris Exposition, if placed within this aisle [of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building], would have a space of 6 feet wide on each side."[5] In may 1893, the month the Fair opened, a cross section of the Machinery Hall superimposed on the cross section of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building was published. The plan of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building established measurements that set the entire span at 368 feet. George B. Post of New York was the architect of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Even though the framing of the central court was achieved with considerably less grace than that of the Palais des Machines, Chicago was victorious. Although the victory, by little more than an arm’s length, today seems almost pathetically numerical, the rivalry spread nationalism to both countries that could not be matched until many years later. This nationalism was very different; it was nationalism that was rooted in modern architecture. The rivalry was not truly to see who could build the largest span; it was to see who was more modern. At the time, industry was rapidly growing in more countries. Because of this constant changing if one country was more industrially advanced than another they could consider themselves more modern.

Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building

Sections
Group Page
The Centennial Exposition
The Eiffel Tower
Architectural Rivalry
Impressionism
Resources

Links
Modern Technology & Industry
The Age of Expositions
Definition: Modernity

[1] “Crystal Palace: History,” <http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/yourlondon/crystal_palace/history.shtml >. (12 May 2004).
[2] Donald Hoffman, “Clear Span Rivalry: The World’s Fairs of 1889-1893,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March, 1970), pp. 48.
[3] Donald Hoffman, “Clear Span Rivalry: The World’s Fairs of 1889-1893,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March, 1970).
[4] Octave Chanute quoted in Donald Hoffman, “Clear Span Rivalry: The World’s Fairs of 1889-1893,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March, 1970), pp. 49.
[5] Quoted in Donald Hoffman, “Clear Span Rivalry: The World’s Fairs of 1889-1893,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March, 1970), pp. 50.