Universal Expositions

Les expositions universelles, une utopie touristique toujours d’actualité ? World’s Fair, The Renew of Touristic Utopia? ¿Exposiciones universales, una utopía turística siempre de actualidad? À travers les expositions universelles récentes et passées et plus particulièrement les expositions de Milan 2015 et de Port-au-Prince 1949, nous rappelons que cette pratique touristique du voyage d’agrément dans une grande ville remonte au XIXe siècle, elle accompagne les origines de notre tourisme moderne, tout en devenant un instrument de géopolitique et de marketing touristique de première importance pour les villes et les pays hôtes. Les expositions peuvent être considérées comme un levier urbanistique, mais aussi un moyen de faire voyager et de comprendre notre monde à travers un système de représentation des identités locales et mondiales proposant toujours une mise en valeur de la découverte scientifique et de l’expérience culturelle à travers les pavillons nationaux. Ces manifestations géantes reposent sur une mise en scène et en récit à partir d’un thème universel questionnant généralement le concept du développement durable et de l’attractivité touristique renouvelée de la destination. Notre analyse porte sur la plus récente des expositions universelles et une exposition oubliée appartenant à l’aire culturelle des caraïbes permettant de dégager trois dynamiques associant le tourisme de méga-événement et l’utopie des voyages initiatiques, à savoir : les expositions universelles se réinventent et retrouvent un certain succès de fréquentation impliquant une redéfinition des champs et des usages d’une utopie contrariée. Faire voyager est un acte à la fois scénographique et symbolique à travers le pavillon impliquant des artifices et des déclinaisons de plus en plus numériques, la quête de cette pratique durable du voyage se confronte à son héritage et à son souvenir à différentes échelles et temporalités. Through the recent and past universal exhibitions and more particularly the world’s fair of Milan 2015 and Port-au-Prince 1949, we recall that this tourist practice of the pleasure trip in a large city dates back to the XIXth century, it accompanies the origins of Our modern tourism, while becoming an instrument of geopolitics and tourist marketing of prime importance to cities and host countries. Exhibitions can be seen as an urban lever, but also a way to make travel and understand our world through a system of representation of local and global identities that always emphasizes scientific discovery and cultural experience through the national pavilion. These giant events are based on a staging and narrative based on a universal theme generally questioning the concept of sustainable development and the renewed attractiveness of the destination. Our analysis focuses on the most recent of the universal exhibitions and a forgotten exhibition belonging to the cultural area of the Caribbean, which reveals three dynamics associating mega-event tourism with the utopia of initiatory journeys, namely: reinvent and regain a certain success of frequentation implying a redefinition of the fields and uses of a disrupted utopia; to make travel is an act both scenographic and symbolic through the pavilion involving artifices and more and more digital declensions, the quest for this sustainable practice of travel is confronted with its heritage and its memory at different scales and temporalities. A través de las exposiciones universales recientes y pasados y, especialmente, la Feria de Milán en 2015 y Puerto Príncipe en 1949, recordamos que esta práctica de turismo de viaje de placer a una gran ciudad se remonta al siglo XIX, que acompaña a los orígenes de turismo moderno, mientras que convertirse en un instrumento geopolítico y comercialización del turismo de las principales ciudades y países anfitriones. Las exposiciones pueden considerarse una palanca urbana, sino también una manera de viajar y entender nuestro mundo a través de un sistema de representación de las identidades locales y globales que todavía ofrece el desarrollo de los descubrimientos científicos y la experiencia cultural a través pabellones nacionales. Estas manifestaciones gigantes basados en una puesta en escena y la narrativa de un tema universal en general, cuestionando el concepto de desarrollo sostenible y renovada atractivos turísticos del destino. Nuestro análisis se centra en las últimas exposiciones universales y una exposición olvidado que pertenecen a la zona cultural del Caribe para identificar tres dinámico entre el turismo mega-evento y la utopía de los viajes iniciáticos, a saber: las exposiciones universales reinventar y encontrar un cierto éxito de asistencia que implica una redefinición de campos y utiliza una utopía alterada, para viajar es un acto tanto teatral y simbólico a través del pabellón y declinaciones cada vez más digitales, las la búsqueda de este viaje práctica sostenible se enfrenta a su artificialidad y su memoria en diferentes escalas y marcos de tiempo. Index géographique : Europe, Caraïbes, Italie, Haïti, France, Milan, Port-au-Prince, New York, Osaka Mots-clés : exposition universelle, utopie, tourisme, architecture, urbanisme Palabras claves : expo, utopía, turismo, arquitectura, urbanismo Keywords : world’s fair, utopia, tourism, architecture, city-planning Patrice Ballester, Les expositions universelles, une utopie touristique toujours d’actualité ? World’s Fair, The Renew of Touristic Utopia? ¿Exposiciones universales, una utopía turística siempre de actualidad?, Études caribéennes 37-38, Août-Décembre 2017 Tourismes, voyages, utopies, pp.1-26.

The PSOE, who had an absolute majority since 1982, instigated a series of policies over the decade designed to foster a strategic national identity acceptable to as many social and territorial constituents as possible. 1992 was the culmination of this process. This article critically assesses the image of national identity that the PSOE attempted to transmit to the general population with mixes success. The particular focus is on cultural activities relating to the V Centenary of the Discovery of America and on the attempt to promote a modern Spanish identity through the Expo’92. My contention will be that it is not possible to identify a new socialist Spanish idea, but that it is meaningful to speak in terms of the recovery of Regenerationists ideas of the early twentieth century liberal nationalism. The American myth, in fact, came from such cultural substrate and it allowed once again to recover, although ambiguously, some ideological aspects of the battered Spanish nationalism. In 1992 Spain was keen to present an image of herself to the world as a special «bridge» between Latin America and Europe. The «transnational» 1992 Spain was the manifestation of a double national identity that the PSOE also tried to strategically maintain through the political slogan «encounter between two worlds.»

In Milan, the year 2015 meant the arrival of Expo. Presented to public opinion as an opportunity for the renaissance of Italy with a great investment in economic and sym- bolic resources, it offered almost no space for critical viewpoints. Nevertheless, numer- ous groups gathered around the No Expo Network, creating a contentious coalition opposing both the 2015 event, and more generally, the idea of development proposed by such mega-events. This article will study the nature of contemporary urban regimes and the role of discursive and political opportunity structures in shaping the frames of social movements.
By means of semi-structured interviews, frame analysis and participation in protests and other similar events, the internal composition of the No Expo Network was mapped, analysing its main arguments and rhetoric of opposition, especially focusing on the theme of the ‘right to the city’.

At the 1937 Exposition Internationale des art et techniques dans la vie moderne in Paris the construction of national identity and the assertion of national prestige, always implicit within framework of the nineteenth century Expositions Universelles, took centre stage. The Nation was packaged as a neat social, economic and political entity for the consumption of an international audience. The aesthetic values of that package, the preference for certain idioms, architectural or otherwise, and the inclusion (or not) of overt political slogans, were all indicative of the style in which individual nations sought to project themselves. The national pavilions in Paris in 1937 then offer many examples of the way in which states, whether democratic or totalitarian, whether to the left or right of the political spectrum, conceived of and orchestrated the interrelations between text, image and space for propagandistic purpose. This paper takes as its focus the use of political symbolism and slogans (or their studied avoidance) within the pavilions of the major totalitarian powers, Germany and the Soviet Union, as well as the contribution of the country in which those nations were then vicariously waging war, namely Spain. The efficacy of each national pavilion in the dissemination of its message and/or the construction of a distinct identity is ultimately considered.

Resumo: O artigo discute o significado econômico das exposições nacionais como parte das grandes exposições universais do século XIX. Com análise específica do caso brasileiro, traça uma discussão sobre o caráter dessas exposições nacionais no país. Em seguida, realiza uma análise de fontes, a partir de uma sátira política da Semana Illustrada e dos relatórios do Júri das Exposições Nacionais de 1861 e de 1866. Destaca com as fontes os elementos críticos à participação do país nas exposições, mostrando também como os relatórios se constituíram em ricas fontes de pesquisa sobre decisões econômicas adotadas pelo governo imperial. Palavras-chave: Exposições. Café. Economia. Século XIX. Brasil Império.

International expositions began to gain popularity in late 19 th century, particularly in europe, and in time came to influence both architecture and urban planning, affecting their historical development. expositions serve as a means of displaying architecture, particularly since industrialization, and have an influence that can transform their surrounding metropolitan areas in different ways. These influenced areas extend way beyond their own scales, and even if they no longer exist today, and have the potential to transform the urban space in which they are located. This study analyses the case of the Great exhibition of 1851, in london, united Kingdom, which can be considered as the world's first international event, and which played a significant role in the transformation of the Kensington site. Although the exhibition space itself was temporary, it transformed the Kensington site on which it was located at an urban scale. This part of the london has changed following the reorganization and redesign after the exhibition was over, and the exposition space has developed into an integrated part of the city by taking on a set of additional functions, with the additional influence also of such neighbouring institutions as museums and later exhibition spaces.

Artículo sobre la serie de relojes monumentales de péndulo cónico ideada por el relojero francés Eugène Farcot. Se estudia en detalle la unidad conservada en el Museo Cerralbo (Madrid, España).

Article in Spanish about the monumental conical pendulum clock series by the French clockmaker Eugène Farcot. It is described in detail the unit preserved in the Museo Cerralbo (Madrid, Spain).

"Alberto Pasini, un orientalista italiano al Salon" in Pasini e l'Oriente. Luci e colori di terre lontane, exh. cat. Parma, Fondazione Magnani-Rocca, March 17 - July 1 2018, Paolo Serafini & Stefano Roffi (ed.), Milan, Silvana Editoriale, 2018, p. 43-49

Entre 1862 e 1889, o império do Brasil participou das mais importantes exposições universais na Europa e nos Estados Unidos. Especialmente no contexto das exposições de Paris, em 1867, Viena, em 1873, e Filadélfia, em 1876, uma das temáticas mais frequentemente visualizadas foi a Guerra do Paraguai, posta em cena pelos organizadores das seções brasileiras como uma suposta luta entre "civilização" e "barbárie". Além disso, com a construção de uma "memória nacional" da vitória sobre os descendentes dos índios guarani, considerados como "selvagens", o Brasil pôde-se mostrar no exterior como um país em processo de "branqueamento" e uma potência regional a ser levada a sério.

This paper aims to classify pavilions prepared for universal expositions. For the purpose of the classification, cohesion between displays and assumptions of national branding, as well as the central idea of Expo was taken into consideration. The first part of the article presents the key areas and determinants of managing a performance project during a world exposition. The second part of the publication contains an assessment and classification of national pavilions, which were based on the observation conducted by the author during Ex-po 2015. In the context of nation branding indicated: pavilions which fit squarely into a current promotional strategy; pavilions which are not connected with a current concept of promotion , however, which consider existing social, economic or political factors; pavilions which are not in line with a long-term concept of country promotion and do not take into account present social, economic or political factors. Moreover, taking into consideration the level of adjustment of particular countries' performances to a theme of Expo, pavilions were be categorised as: pavilions which correspond closely with the exhibition theme; pavilions which correspond loosely with the exhibition theme; pavilions which do not correspond at all with the exhibition theme. The exposures of Ethiopia, France, Germany, Slovakia, Slo-venia and Turkmenistan are given as examples. Special attention was given to the Polish pavilion. Finally, the author focused on whether participation in world exhibitions in the 21st century is legitimate – taking into account the context of costs related to the preparation of pavilions and universal access to the Internet.

De mai à octobre 1855, Le Times publie plus de trente  « lettres » envoyées de Paris par son correspondant, qui rendent compte de l’Exposition Universelle. Depuis la veille de l’ouverture, initialement prévue le 15 mai, jusqu’à la cérémonie de clôture, le 15 novembre, le correspondant de presse, qui se fait tantôt témoin oculaire, tantôt commentateur, tantôt polémiste, rapporte aux foyers anglais les éléments qu’il juge les plus dignes d’intérêt. Il décrit et met en perspective dans ses surveys (enquêtes) les nouveautés et les réussites des civilisations contemporaines.
L’Exposition Universelle est, pour ce correspondant, et pour l’Angleterre, un sujet d’autant plus important qu’il s’agit de savoir si la France, sa rivale, fera mieux, ou moins bien, que l’Angleterre en 1851. Réussite totale du point de vue des français – malgré quelques désagréments –, cette seconde exposition universelle est pour cet anglais un échec total. En outre, « l’exposition artistique  » lui semble une incongruité.

Capítulo XVI del libro de Thomas J. Hutchinson (1873). Two years in Peru, with explorations of its antiquities [Dos años en el Perú, con indagaciones sobre sus antigüedades] (Vol. 1, pp. 331-343). Londres, Reino Unido: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, & Searle. Traducción: Daniel Vifian López y Rennzo Rojas Rupay. Notas a pie de página y «Nota introductoria» de la «Sección fuentes para el estudio del arte latinoamericano» por Daniel Vifian López.

Si de algo puede alardear la ciudad de Cieza es de la gran vitalidad cultural que despliegan las numerosas asociaciones e instituciones que conforman su sociedad, y que a pesar de las dificultades, con trabajo y pasión, desarrollan una gran variedad de actividades que dinamizan no sólo él ámbito local, sino también los de más allá de nuestras fronteras. Es tal la oferta temática que raro es el ciudadano que no se vea representado en alguna de ellas. Y por lo que vamos conociendo de la historia de nuestro pueblo, esta inquietud ha existido siempre, naturalmente sujeta a las circunstancias y peculiaridades de cada época. Estas inquietudes se verían reflejadas en eventos como el que en este año de 2014, 91 años después de celebrarse en el Casino de Cieza, rememoramos en este artículo.

Nowadays universal expositions (also referred to as Expo) are held every five years and enable almost all countries and several dozens of international organisations to exhibit themselves. Participating in such events – by presenting cultural, scientific and engineering achievements – is believed to contribute mostly to creating a desired national brand, and consequently, among other things, to stimulate tourist traffic, as well as to establish economic relations. However, the participation in a six-month Expo event is considered a great organisational challenge and means heavy expenditures to be incurred by national budgets. Furthermore, owing to the development of the Internet, billions of people (including also tourists and investors) have nowadays an easy access to the information about individual countries and their offers. Therefore, the reason for organising such huge events (also referred to as mega-events) like world expositions in the 21st century can be questioned. One may advance a thesis that the primary function of those expositions, i.e. informative and educational, which has been served for the last 150 years, is now of marginal importance. And thus, the aim of this article is to evaluate the reason for exhibiting during world expositions. To attain the aforementioned goal, there have been gathered the arguments for participating in such events (such as an opportunity to get the knowledge about the exhibition performances of many countries in one place, the presentation of national offers engaging all visitors’ senses), as well as counterarguments (high participation costs, the decline of contest nature, difficulty in defining achieved image-related effects). The author’s conclusions result from a many years’ observation of the trade show and economic exhibition market, as well as from the observation made during Expo 2010, held in Shanghai, which was the largest exhibition event ever in the history of the world.

O artigo trata da participação do cinema na Exposition Coloniale Internationale et des Pays d’Outre-Mer, que ocorreu na cidade de Vincennes, vizinha a Paris, entre maio e novembro de 1931. Dentro de uma perspectiva de valorização do Império Colonial, o cinema teve papel decisivo na construção e no reforço de um imaginário voltado à afirmação da França como nação condutora da civilização. Recuperando as contradições presentes nestas ações, pretendemos situar historicamente tanto a exposição quanto o cinema, pensando-os de forma articulada.

(In French further below)

In both World Wars of the 20th century, the French and Americans fought side by side, against a common enemy. In the decade leading up to both wars, the USA held an international exposition in which the French took part.
The French participated in both the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, but little is remembered of either. Why? Were the exhibits too small or conservative in the middle of a global avant-garde? How did the American people regard these French contributions?
A brief analysis of the aims of the French commissioners for both the 1915 and 1939 world fairs, along with a review of the actual paintings exhibited in the San Francisco and New York expositions, and the resulting press coverage could help identify and understand early reasons for the shift of the cultural capital from Paris to New York.

Au cours des deux guerres mondiales qui ont marqué l'histoire de l'humanité au XXe siècle, les Français et les Américains ont combattu ensemble contre l'adversité. Pendant la décennie précédant chacun de ces conflits, les Etats-Unis ont été le pays hôte d'Expositions internationales et universelles auxquelles la France a systématiquement contribué.
La participation artistique de la France aux Expositions internationales de 1915 à San Francisco (Panama-Pacific International Exposition) et de 1939 à New York (New York World's Fair) est mal connue. Pour quelles raisons ? Insignifiance quantitative ? Conservatisme anachronique au milieu d’un avant-gardisme généralisé ? Quel regard les Américains ont-ils porté sur la participation artistique de la France ?
Une brève analyse des objectifs des commissaires français lors des deux Expositions considérées et du contenu pictural des participations artistiques françaises, et l'étude de leur réception critique par la presse américaine doivent permettre de comprendre le regard que portent les Etats-Unis sur la France, au moins dans sa dimension culturelle. Il sera peut-être possible d'entrevoir, à la faveur d'une perception banalisante de la création picturale française, des signes du glissement de l'activité artistique vers le Nouveau continent, Paris transmettant, malgré elle, les armes de capitale des arts à New York.

Depuis que la Puissance du Canada a été constituée, elle a participé à de nombreuses Expositions internationales, en Europe comme en Amérique. Promouvoir les produits canadiens, stimuler l’économie et la démographie canadiennes, tels sont les objectifs prioritaires traditionnellement choisis par Ottawa dans le cadre de sa participation, malgré les difficultés engendrées par ses liens avec la puissance britannique.
En 1900, le Canada participe à l’Exposition universelle internationale de Paris. Encore dépendant de la Grande-Bretagne, le Canada expose ses produits dans un pavillon installé dans les jardins du Trocadéro. Ainsi, le Dominion figure sur l’itinéraire du voyage fictif à travers le monde que rend possible l’Exposition internationale, sans sortir de Paris.
La participation canadienne en 1900 s’inscrit dans le mouvement d’émancipation du Dominion et, dans le regard des visiteurs, permet d’estomper ses arpents de neige à la faveur de son potentiel agricole, industriel et touristique.

'Guillaume Évrard’s archival research on the Royal Academy of Art’s involvement in the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878 represents another constructive contribution to the body of research initiated by Paul Greenhalgh into the nineteenth-century culture of international exhibitions that is proving an increasingly helpful way of reading the evolution the rapidly evolving "event culture" of sprawling art fairs now dominating the global contemporary art market.'
Tom Flynn, Kingston University, London
http://www.cercles.com/review/r71/Gould.html

This paper focuses on the role of the Royal Academy of Arts (R.A.) in the preparation of the visual arts exhibition Great Britain presented in the galleries of the 1878 Paris Exposition universelle et internationale on the Champ de Mars.

While, in the last quarter of the 19th century, London is an imperial metropolis and Great Britain, a global economic and industrial power, the R.A. is still able to come to the conclusion that, “whereas Belgian and French pictures are well known and command a sale all over Europe, English Pictures are but little known and esteemed out of England.”

Great Britain was in 1878 the most important foreign exhibiting country in the world exhibition, across the various sections of the event, with the largest area of galleries at disposal, including the fine arts galleries.
International and universal exhibitions were major commercial events, although items were not available for immediate sale (at least in Paris), and political gatherings, even if most visitors were more enthused by unique attractions than by grand discourses.

This paper relies on original research conducted within the archival resources of the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, London. It aims at analysing the issues at stake and the more or less clearly defined objectives in the preparation of the British fine arts galleries, between artistic and commercial interests.

This paper explores the representation of capital — specifically agricultural capital — via architecture during the 1937 Paris International Exposition, by focusing on the Canadian pavilion at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and one building of the French Centre rural (Rural Centre) at the western edge of Paris at Porte Maillot.  Capital has historically encompassed a wide range of items, especially in agriculture, extending from finance — both fixed capital and investment — to a more grounded and open-ended signification that has included production processes, climate and the actual assets on a farm: livestock, plantations, land, buildings, machinery and equipment. Although both buildings drew on the common building type of a grain elevator, I argue that they did so in distinctly different ways and thereby represented different moments of capital speculation and displacement; namely the two different stages of capitalist flow, production and consumption, as Michel de Certeau analyzed them in The Practice of Everyday Life (1988). The Canadian grain elevator was artistic and aesthetic in nature, whereas the French structure was an accurate replica of a contemporary type. Considered together the Canadian pavilion and French grain elevator are two different representations of agricultural capital in the late 1930s; the latter, a modernist and functionalist image of a technocratic nature, the former, a nationally-connotated shape of a deeply emotional value.

"After 1870, Berlin grew into a huge metropolis and soon longed for a world exposition just like the ones London, Paris, Brussels, Philadelphia and Chicago had hosted. Civic leaders and business lobbyists besieged the Imperial government, but neither the Kaiser nor Bismarck and his ministers got enchanted with the idea. Left to their own devices, Berliners arranged for a supposedly "local" commercial fair, dubbed the 1986 Great Industrial Exposition. Huge in any dimension and attempting to attract international visitors, it defied the national government's resistance to a world fair. It was an exercise in modern and professionalized great project and world event communications.

GERMAN/DEUTSCH - Eine Weltausstellung in Berlin! Die Idee faszinierte die junge Reichshauptstadt. Doch Kaiser und Regierung sagten nein.
Schlagwörter: Berliner Gewerbeausstellung, Elektropolis, Expo, Fundraising, Frankreich, Großbritannien, Handel, Industrie, Interessenvertretung, Kolonialismus, Lobby, Made in Germany, Metropole, Plakat, Pressearbeit, Protektionismus, Schutzzollpolitik, Spenden, Verbände, Weltausstellung, Zeitungen
Organisationen: Auswärtiges Amt, Centralverband Deutscher Industrieller (CDI), Handelskammer, Hansabund, Verein Berliner Kaufleute und Industrieller (VBKI)
Unternehmen: AEG, Dresdner Bank, Siemens
Personen: Leo von Caprivi, Alexander Geppert, Ludwig Max Goldberger, Ludwig Sütterlin, Wilhelm II.
Publikationen: Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, Officielle Ausstellungs-Nachrichten, Reichsanzeiger
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