Buildings

The buildings housed sixty-five exhibits that followed the theme of the building. Some of the more popular exhibits were curiosities rather than serious displays of technology and progress

 

Building Themes:

 

 

• Manufacturers/Liberal Arts

• Transportation
• Horticulture
• Electricity
• Machinery
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  The Transportation Building

  Fisheries
• Technology
• Mines
• Fine Arts
• Machinery
• Agriculture
• Liberal Arts

 

 

 

 

 

The "White City"?

Designers Selected a Classic Architectual design

• Most of the buildings of the fair were designed in the classical style of architecture. The area at the Court of Honor was known as The White City.
• The buildings were clad in white stucco, which, in comparison to the tenements of Chicago, seemed illuminated.
• It was also called the White City because of the extensive use of street lights, which made the boulevards and buildings usable at night.

 

Founders of the World's Fair

• Frederick Law Olmsted, America's foremost landscape architect, was responsible for laying out the fairgrounds.

 

• A distinguished group of architects, including Henry Ives Cobb, Richard Morris Hunt, Charles McKim, George B. Post, and Louis Sullivan designed the exposition's buildings under the supervision of Daniel H. Burnham.
• Sophie Hayden, the first woman awarded a degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), designed the famous Woman's Building.
   

 

 

 Daniel Burhnam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World's Fair Beginning

• New York City, Washington, D.C., St.Louis, and Chicago had all vied for the honor of housing the exposition, and it was during this vigorous and often vocal competition that Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun, dubbed Chicago "that windy city."
• Chicago's lobbyists finally won out and, on April 25, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the act that designated Chicago as the site of the exposition.

 

 

You Tube Video from Chicago's World Fair!

 

 

The World's Columbian Exposition, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing in America, was actually held in 1893, a year later than had been planned.

• The exposition occupied 630 acres in Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance.
• The main site was bounded by Stony Island Avenue on the west, 67th Street on the south, Lake Michigan on the east, and 56th Street on the north
• The Midway Plaisance, a narrow strip of land between 59th and 60th Streets, extends west from Stony Island to Cottage Grove Avenue.

Jackson Park Today!

World's Columbian Exposition

World’s Columbian Exposition

“The White City”

Jackson Park, Chicago Illinois

May 1893-October 1893