Manufactures Building at the Chicago Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 :: Architecture History

missing image Manufactures Building This 11 by 7 inch color lithograph seen here depicts the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. As the main exhibit space of the fair, it was the largest building ever constructed at the time and the most visited site at the exposition. The general scheme for the building was laid out during the early planning stages of the Chicago fair. It was to be located facing Lake Michigan on its long axis and the east end of the Court of Honor, where the other main buildings were grouped, on its short axis. Architect John Wellborn Root, partner of fair director Daniel Burnham, devised the basic function for the building. Because Root died early in the planning stages, the program was radically altered by his successor Charles Atwood. The latter's idea for a clear span surrounded by galleries prevailed, as fair organizers were intent to surpass that of the famous Galerie des Machines at the Paris exposition of 1889. New York architect George B. Post (1837-1913) was chosen to design the Manufactures building from a group of mostly eastern architects selected for the major fair buildings, including Richard Morris Hunt and McKim, Mead and White. His experience in large classically detailed New York buildings such as the Produce Exchange (1881-84) and the Havemeyer Building (1891-93), both demolished, made him a good candidate to uphold the White City ideal of the fair, emphasizing classical canons of composition and ornamentation. His expertise in the use of iron and steel, as in the large interior light court of the Produce Exchange, would come in handy if the Manufactures Building was to succeed in its "clear-span rivalry" with the Galerie des Machines (Hoffmann). Post succeeded in both aesthetic and technical challenges. Not only the largest building at the fair, the Manufactures Building was one of its greatest architectural assets. It measured 1,687 by 787 feet, had an exhibit space of 44 acres, and a central hall spanning 370 feet and rising 211 feet. The great steel arch trusses were certainly the building's most remarkable feature, left exposed and filled in with glass to form a greenhouse-like ceiling that allowed light to pour in. Surrounding the central space were galleries with additional exhibit space that looked down into the great hall. The exterior was no less impressive. Constructed of the same reinforced plaster as most of the other buildings at the fair, the Manufactures Building featured a severely classical fa ade.