The History of World Expositions
|
[All World Expositions]
|
[Home(EXPO 2000)]
 1 

 2 

 3 

 4 


Copyright: Le Memorial officiel de l'Exposition universelle et internationale de Bruxelles 1958-1962, Bd. 4, S.

The architecture of the national pavilions was primarily envisaged as an envelope for the thematic exhibitions. The use of daring forms, based on the idea of roofs suspended from supporting frames -"floating architecture" - was intended to impress visitors with a new forward-looking language of space. Instead of mighty halls with columns or domed buildings as the apotheosis of industrial advancement and imperial dreams of power, the overall impression was dominated by the search for a new freedom initiated by the architects of the exposition grounds. Although Marcel von Goethem, the Chief Architect of the exposition, promised all foreign participants absolute freedom in the design of their presentation, the descriptive terminology for the designs of most architects was saturated by phrases like "speed", "overcoming gravity", "breaking with traditional styles", "deconstruction", "lightness" and "transparency". Although no "international style" with a "canon of form" resulted, the most important common design principle was to waive the use of static load bearing elements such as walls and roofs, and concentrate the inherent forces on only a few static points.


The design presented by Guillaume Gillet for the French pavilion included a 130 ton arched steel pillar reaching upwards in order to balance a broad open-spanned hall with two gigantic curved gable roofs. During the building phase it became necessary however to support the outer walls because the exciting plans proved to be unworkable. The US pavilion designed by Edward Stone had a diameter of 104 metres and was the world's largest rotunda. The design boasted a floating roof supported by concentric steel cables. The transparent web-like membrane had a central circular opening such that the 26 metre high building was able to incorporate a group of trees in the Royal Park.

This building stood opposite the bombastic Soviet steel and glass cube, which throned over a broad open stairway. The basis for the design were steel supports set at a spacing of 48 metres to which were attached aluminium roof joists at a height of 20 metres using a symmetrical tensioning system. The inner side of these transverse arms carried the lightly curved transparent roof whereas the outer points supported the aluminium/glass façade. The exterior of the hall ultimately attracted less interest than did the exhibition it housed: which included the most recent knowledge gleaned from space research. In particular the original models of the Sputnik and Sputnik II satellites evolved into one of the main attractions of EXPO '58.

It was the juxtaposition of the American and Soviet pavilions which symbolised the political constellation in the fifties. In order to comply with the humanistic theme of the exposition, participants detoured around a self critical stock taking of the past and the current political situation, as well as any public demonstration of a critical approach to technical advancement. The fact that this was primarily motivated by the arms race and that the relationship between East and West was at that time dominated by the discussions about the stationing of nuclear weapons was glossed over. And so the Americans presented a nuclear reactor designed to generate electricity for people and praised their social system by showcasing electrical vote counting machines while the spherical architectural features symbolised democracy and freedom. Rivalling this position, the Soviet side chose monumental yet innovative architectural tones to underpin its own claim on modernism. In the interior, heroic statues of workers and machines spoke of the foundations of their ideology which had culminated in the scientific and cultural blossoming of the East. And in particular, the very effective documentation of the successfully completed experiments in space enjoyed pride of place.


deutsch | english
1851 | 1862 | 1867 | 1873 | 1876 | 1889 | 1893 | 1900 | 1904 | 1929 |
1933 | 1937 | 1939 | 1958 | 1962 | 1967 | 1970 | 1992 | 1998 | 2000
The Brussels World Exposition 1958
Overcoming Gravity
Year: 1958City: BrusselsCountry: Belgium
Duration: 17th April - 19 October 1958

 

 

Printversion - Click Here