Rotunda and gardens
on the 1873 poster
Marc Maison
In 1873, it was Vienna’s turn to host the 5th great World’s Fair and the first in a German-speaking country. Emperor Franz-Joseph I commissioned it as soon as he returned from Paris World’s Fair of 1867, to commemorate his 25 years of reign, and to show off a cosmopolitan Austria-Hungary that was open to international trade.
Constructing the site, 1872-3
Structurae
His Exhibition was built on Prater Park where the arrival of coffee-houses led to the start of the Wurstelprater, a centre of relaxed entertainment: lawns, gardens, lakes, forests. Prater Park, near the Danube River, had previously been the imperial hunting grounds, bequeathed to the Viennese by Kaiser Josef II in 1766. The impressive grounds were much larger that the Paris grounds where the previous World Fair had been held, to showcase Austro-Hungarian industry and culture. Preparations for the Fair cost £23.4 million, lasting from May-Nov 1873 and hosting 7,225,000 visitors.
The buildings and landscaped grounds of all C19th world fairs, including Vienna’s, were directly related to the architectural and urban design traditions of the host cities. At the same time, they possessed idealised qualities that made them distinct from other contemporary buildings. The result of collaborative planning among architects, engineers and planning committees, the exhibitions were built to evoke ideal civic settings, their exhibition palaces, pavilions and gardens forming exemplary complexes that synthesised both invention and tradition.
There were c26,000 exhibitors housed in different buildings erected for this fair, including the Rotunda, a large circular building in Prater Park designed by Scottish engineer John Scott Russell. A central building that became the symbol of the World Fair, the Rotunda was by far the largest domed structure in the world when it was built, with a 108 ms diameter. See the magnificent view of the rotunda towards the elongated gallery escape, after the picturesque, grotesque and instructive pavilions and special buildings, after the well-tended meadow and forest areas, they wrote.
British Machine Hall
The opening of every exhibition was usually by royalty. Vienna’s Fair of 1873 was naturally inaugurated by Emperor Francis Josef, with imposing ceremonies in the presence of vast throngs. The day was immortalised by the music of Handel and Strauss.
The Vienna exhibition set off Western nations' pavilions against Eastern pavilions, with the host, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, setting itself at the juncture between East and West. This was the place where many peoples brought the best of their culture and industry. Appropriately the 1873 Ottoman Pavilion was more prominent than its pavilion in previous world fairs. Egypt, which had its own pavilion despite being a territory of the Ottoman Empire, included small replicas of notable Ottoman buildings and models of vernacular architecture eg a replica of the Sultan Ahmed Fountain in Topkapı Palace, a model Istanbul residence, Turkish bath and bazaar. This palace built by Khedive Ismail Pasha was particularly admired.
The Japanese display,
seen from one of the Ottoman minarets, Wiki
The Chinese Tea Pavilion was perhaps the most original. The U.S designed an Indian wigwam, where gin and other spirits were served, and Brasil’s Pavilion displayed rich minerals and rare woods. The Japanese Pavilion had its own garden where a small bamboo bridge crossed a miniature river. The garden was decorated with bronzes, earthenware, stone lanterns, temple and lavish copy of the 15+ ms Kamakura Buddha.
The U.S Wigwam Pavilion
Artblart
The industrialists, who showed their products at world fairs, felt they were benefitting the whole of human society. After all, Vienna World Exhibition was dedicated to culture and industry. And it was the sewing machine industry that was most widely represented: from North America, France, Denmark and Britain, but particularly from Germany and Austria.
Most countries’ World Fair structures were meant to be dismantled at the end of the festivities, the Eiffel Tower (Paris 1889) and the Exhibition Buildings (Melbourne 1880) were fortunate exceptions. In spite of this, the Vienna Fair itself was disappointing in terms of the number of visitors (because of flooding, stock market crash and cholera). In the end, rather than the expected 20 million visitors, only 7.2 million came, and resulted in a major loss. So although the Rotunda was intended to be torn down, the lack of finances meant that there were insufficient funds to do this and so it remained standing.
The 61 m diameter giant Riesenrad Wheel, at entrance of Vienna’s Prater, was not erected until 1897, to celebrate Emperor Franz Josef I's golden Jubilee. How tragic that the largest Vienna fire broke out in 1937, after which very little of the main building was left.
Read Great Exhibitions: The World Fairs 1851-1937 by Robert Wilson, 2008