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This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1964 New York World's Fair and the golden anniversary of our state's iconic contribution, the Wisconsin Pavilion. The fair showcased new technology and mid-century culture, and it was the space-age design and new technology used for the building materials that provided the catalyst for its creation, and the means to preserve it.
Representing Wisconsin
Our state has long celebrated and promoted its history at fairs and expositions, which has typically been reflected in the architecture chosen for Wisconsin's fair buildings. Designs often depicted aspirational images of education and cultural sophistication and were constructed of materials meant to promote Wisconsin products and industries.
Because each exhibitor chose a building style that reflected its own products and culture, world's fairs often featured an eclectic mix of buildings. States, foreign countries, and corporations built stately, whimsical, and austere buildings placed alongside large exhibition halls built by fair organizers. Fairgrounds also included a midway of carnival rides, food, beverages, and entertainment.
As a young state in 1876, Wisconsin participated in the world's fair located in Philadelphia, which marked the nation's centennial. Wisconsin's state building was a "plain but comfort- able and neatly furnished cottage,"1 a two-story Italianate with a porch wrapping the building on three sides. The most notable exhibit was the famous Civil War eagle Old Abe, displayed alongside Wisconsin products in the nearby Agricultural Hall. In 1893, Oshkosh architect William Waters designed Wiscon- sin's large Queen Anne-style state building for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The building featured four porches and utilized construction materials that displayed Wisconsin timber and stone, including brownstone and granite. In 1904, Milwaukee architecture firm Ferry and Clas provided an "English cottage style" design for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in Saint Louis. Much like the buildings at the previous fairs, it resembled a large residence. Its functions were to provide visitors with a place to rest, read, and write and to hold offices for state officials. The fair's exhibit halls housed displays of state products. At the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, Wisconsin's large Neoclassical building with a two- story Ionic colonnade was referred to by promotional materials as being of the Colonial style and more typical of an institution...