Exposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next. It was the sixth of ten major expositions held in the city between 1855 and 1937. It was held at the esplanade of Les Invalides, the Champ de Mars, the Trocadéro and at the banks of the Seine between them, with an additional section in the Bois de Vincennes, and it was visited by more than fifty million people. Many international congresses and other events were held within the framework of the exposition, including the 1900 Summer Olympics.
Many technological innovations were displayed at the fair, including the Grande Roue de Paris ferris wheel, the Rue de l'Avenir moving sidewalk, the first ever regular passenger trolleybus line, escalators, diesel engines, electric cars, dry cell batteries, electric fire engines, talking films, the telegraphone, the galalith and the matryoshka dolls. It also brought international attention to the Art Nouveau style. Additionally, it showcased France as a major colonial power through numerous pavilions built on the hill of the Trocadéro Palace.
Major structures built for the exposition include the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, the Pont Alexandre III, the Gare d'Orsay railroad station, and the Paris Métro Line 1, all of which survive today.
Organization
The first international exposition was held in London in 1851. The French Emperor Napoleon III attended and was deeply impressed. He commissioned the first Paris Universal Exposition of 1855. Its purpose was to promote French commerce, technology and culture. It was followed by another in 1867, and, after the Emperor's downfall in 1870, another in 1878, celebrating national unity after the defeat of the Paris Commune, and then in 1889, celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution.Planning for the 1900 Exposition began in 1892, under President Carnot, with Alfred Picard as Commissioner-General. Three French Presidents and ten Ministers of Commerce held office before it was completed. President Carnot died shortly before it was completed. Though many of the buildings were not finished, the exposition was opened on 14 April 1900 by President Émile Loubet.
Participating nations
Countries from around the world were invited by France to showcase their achievements and cultures. Of the fifty-six countries invited to participate with official representation, forty accepted, plus an additional number of colonies and protectorates of France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Portugal.Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Hungary participated as independent nations, although belonging to Austria-Hungary at that time. Finland, although having a national pavilion located at the Rue des Nations, officially participated as part of Russia. Egypt, also with an own pavilion, participated as part of Turkey. The few exhibitors from countries without an official presence at the fair participated under a joint "International Section".
Among the colonies and protectorates present in the fair were French Algeria, Cambodia, Congo, Dahomey, Guadeloupe, Guiana, Guinea, India, Indochina, Ivory Coast, Laos, Madagascar, Martinique, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Oceania, Réunion, Senegal, Somaliland, Sudan, Tonkin, Tunisia, West Africa, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the Dutch East Indies, British Canada, Ceylon, India and Western Australia and the Portuguese colonies.
Exposition site
The site of the exposition covered along the left and right banks of the Seine from the esplanade of Les Invalides to the Eiffel Tower at the Champ de Mars. It also included the Grand Palais and Petit Palais on the right bank. An additional section of for agricultural exhibits and other structures was built in the Bois de Vincennes. The total area of the exposition,, was ten times larger than the 1855 Exposition.The exposition buildings were meant to be temporary; they were built on iron frames covered with plaster and staff, a kind of inexpensive artificial stone. Many of the buildings were unfinished when the exposition opened, and most were demolished immediately after it closed.
The Porte Monumentale
The Porte Monumentale de Paris, located on the Place de la Concorde, was the main entrance of the exposition. The architect of the monument overall was René Binet, although many others contributed to the constituent parts. His overall design was inspired by the biological studies of Ernst Haeckel. It was composed of towering polychrome ceramic decoration in Byzantine motifs, crowned by a statue high called La Parisienne. Unlike classical statues, she was dressed in modern Paris fashion. La Parisienne was executed by sculptor Paul Moreau-Vauthier who collaborated with Paris' pre-eminiment haute couturier of the day, Jeanne Paquin, who designed the figure's fashionable attire. Below the statue was a sculptural prow of a boat, the symbol of Paris, and friezes depicting the workers who built the exposition. The central arch was flanked by two slender, candle-like towers, resembling triumph columns. The gateway was brightly illuminated at night by 3,200 light bulbs and an additional forty arc lamps. Forty thousand visitors an hour could pass beneath the arch to approach the twenty-six ticket booths. Above the ticket booth windows, the names of provincial cities were inscribed, symbolically enacting a hierarchical relation between Paris and the provinces.The structure of the entrance tower as a whole was adorned with Byzantine motifs and Persian ceramic ornamentation, but the true inspiration behind the piece was not of cultural background. Binet sought inspiration from science, tucking the vertebrae of a dinosaur, the cells of a beehive, rams, peacocks, and poppies into the design alongside other animalistic stimuli.
The Gateway, like the exposition buildings, was intended to be temporary, and was demolished as soon as the exposition was finished. The ceramic frieze depicting the workers of the exposition was designed by Anatole Guillot, an academic sculptor. The workers frieze was preserved by the head of the ceramics firm that made it, Émile Müller, and moved to what is now Parc Müller in the town of Breuillet, Essonne. The workers were situated above a frieze of animals designed by sculptor Paul Jouve and executed by ceramicist Alexandre Bigot.
The Pont Alexandre III
The Pont Alexandre III was an essential link of the exposition, connecting the pavilions and palaces on the left and right banks of the Seine. It was named after Czar Alexander III of Russia, who had died in 1894, and celebrated the recent alliance between France and Russia. The foundation stone was laid by his son, Czar Nicholas II in 1896, and the bridge was finished in 1900. It was the work of engineers Jean Resal and Amédée D'Alby and architect Gaston Cousin. The widest and longest of the Paris bridges at the time, it was constructed on a single arch of steel long. Though it was named after the Russian Czar, the themes of the decoration were almost entirely French. At the ends, the bridge was supported by four massive stone pylons high, decorated with statues of the Renomées, female figures with trumpets, and gilded statues of the horse Pegasus. At the base of the pedestals are allegorical statues representing the France of Charlemagne, the France of the Renaissance, the France of Louis XIV and France in 1900. The Russian element was in the center, with statuary of the Nymphs of the Neva River holding a gilded seal of the Russian Empire. At the same time that the Pont Alexander III was built, a similar bridge, the Trinity Bridge was built in Saint-Petersburg, and was dedicated to French-Russian friendship by French President Félix Faure.Thematic pavilions
To house the industrial, commercial, scientific, technological and cultural exhibitions, the French organization built huge thematic pavilions on the esplanade of Les Invalides and the Champ de Mars and reused the Galerie des machines from the 1889 Exposition. On the other bank of the Seine, they built the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais for the fine arts exhibitions.The 83,047 French and foreign exhibitors at the fair were divided into eighteen groups based on their subject matter, which in turn were divided into 121 classes, and based on the class to which they belonged, they were allocated in the corresponding official thematic pavilion. Each thematic pavilion was divided into national sections, which were the responsibility of the corresponding country and where its exhibitors were located. Some country with a strong presence in a specific sector, at its own request, was even granted a plot adjoining to the main building to build a small pavilion to house its exhibitors.
The Palaces of Optics, Illusions and Aquarium
Twenty-one of the thirty-three official pavilions were devoted to technology and the sciences. Among the most popular was the Palace of Optics, whose main attractions included the Great Paris Exposition Telescope, which enlarged the image of the moon ten thousand times. The image was projected on a screen in size, in a hall which seated two thousand visitors. This telescope was the largest refracting telescope at that time. The optical tube assembly was long and in diameter, and was fixed in place due to its mass. Light from the sky was sent into the tube by a movable mirror.Another very popular feature of the Palace of Optics was the giant kaleidoscope, which attracted three million visitors. Other features of the optics pavilion included demonstrations of X-rays and dancers performing in phosphorescent costumes.
The Palais des Illusions, adjoining the Palace of Optics, was an extremely popular exhibition. It was a large hall which used mirrors and electric lighting to create a show of colorful and bizarre optical illusions. It was preserved after the exposition in the Musée Grévin.
Another scientific attraction was the aquarium, the largest in the world at the time, viewed from an underground gallery long. The water tanks were each long, wide and deep, and contained a wide selection of exotic marine life.