The Arts and the People at Brussels

BY JAMES S. PLAUT

TRADITIONALLY, world s fairs have provided the opportunity for dramatic advances in architectural design and construction engineering. The Crystal Palace (1851) and the Eiffel Tower (1889) are the best-remembered examples of such pioneering, but there are a host of others, and the European and American continents are studded with public buildings standing as a permanent reminder of other fairs. The daring flights of form and technique that marked so many of the pavilions at Brussels in 1958 were a most exciting display of the modern art of building.

The use of visible exterior supports was a persistent architectural theme: many pavilions were literally hung, or suspended, from cables attached to fixed shafts of steel or concrete. “Skins" of plastic and concrete and metal were used effectively to sheathe the free, sculptural forms of Corbusier’s pavilion for the Phillips Company of Holland, the Marie Thumas foods building, and the renowned Atomium. The breathtaking concrete shaft of the Génie Civil—the pavilion of Belgian civil engineering — underscored the eminence of Belgian builders in the use of reinforced concrete. Here, as in the complex of the German pavilions, suspended bridges of steel were a revelation. The confidence and ease with which new materials were incorporated into such structural patterns produced a gratifying new aesthetic.

In general, the new Fair buildings (in contradiction to the massive old structures held over from the Brussels World Exposition of 1935 and dressed up for this occasion by the addition of flamboyant screening façades) were well-proportioned and unpretentious, almost of a studied simplicity. Their light appearance and clean, sharp lines gave them a sense of contemporary elegance. Color was used with ingratiating restraint in most instances. Many of the foreign pavilions resembled one another architecturally, the common denominator being the boxlike “international" style. Thus, the visual difference between such pavilions as the Austrian, Canadian, Portuguese, and Yugoslav was largely a matter of detail and refinement. The virtuosity of the American architect, Edward Stone, lay not only in the ingenuity of his structure but in his amazing capacity to avoid mechanical harshness in a vast exhibits building and to invest it, instead, with a pervasive sense of warmth, delicacy, even fragility.

There were no architectural awards at the Fair, hut the consensus at Brussels was that, had there been, Stone’s pavilion and theater for the United States would have won top honors. The French pavilion was considered by many to have been le plus osé, the most daring in concept, but a little less convincing in its transition from engineering theory to architectural reality.

The architectural impact of the Fair was heightened appreciably by the sheer beauty of the site. No other exposition in our time has been blessed by such a rich setting. The royal park of five hundred acres is a stretch of hilly woodland, pierced by minute gorges and threaded with thin streams, and in the skillful hands of the Belgian landscapists, the grounds were transformed into a wonderland of light and verdure. To this the high incidence of Belgian rainfall brought an additional blessing: flower gardens of exceptional brilliance. The great exhibitions of Paris were laid out, ribbonlike, along the Seine, as was the Festival of Britain along the banks of the Thames. Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1933 utilized the flat shore of Lake Michigan. New York in 1939 filled in the swamps of Flushing Meadow. The Brussels Fair will long be remembered for its lovely natural setting.

SINCE art mirrors the state of man in his contemporary image, it is an important element in any larger statement of human progress. At Brussels, art was used both to embellish and to document. A few countries, notably France, the United States, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, attempted by means of formal exhibits in their own pavilions to reveal facets of the nation’s artistic activity. Others isolated works of art for their special significance: the Italians showed a few superb Etruscan objects; the Czechs displayed their traditional skill in glassmaking; the Israelis devoted the longest facade of their building to an evocative landscape mural; and the Austrians commissioned a large bronze relief from their best sculptor.

The international exhibition, “Fifty Years of Modern Art,” organized by the Belgians and a committee of distinguished foreign authorities, was one of the triumphs of Brussels. It was so impressively successful that instead of giving way after three months to an exhibition of old masters, as originally scheduled, it was held over and continued to enthrall visitors for the Fair’s duration. Embracing some four hundred works of painting and sculpture lent from public and private collections throughout the world, the exhibition was designed to illustrate the two dominant currents of Western art in the twentieth century: the “speculative cerebral" and the emotive instinctive.” The committee planned an exhibition which was international in the best sense, selecting the finest examples from many countries, grouping them by movement (cubism, futurism, expressionism, social realism, abstraction, and so forth), and avoiding the deadening effect of a chauvinistic compendium of national achievements. Since the art of our time is international, the hanging of the show produced a vivid panorama of the creative vigor of the century. Three galleries apart from the main stream of the exhibition held special excitement. An introductory gallery devoted to the great and influential nineteenth-century precursors offered brilliant works by Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and van Gogh as well as Munch, Ensor, and Theodore Rousseau. Two other galleries, filled with paintings from the Soviet Union, were in dramatic contrast. In one were some of the greatest paintings of the last fifty years, including five superb works by Matisse and four by Picasso, borrowed from the museums of Leningrad and Moscow; in the other, an assemblage of the proletarian art of living Russian painters — large hyperrealistic “machines,” dominated by a huge canvas depicting in gory detail the death of Hitler. The only political drama in the formation of the exhibition had occurred over the loans from Russia. The Soviets had insisted upon a characteristic quid pro quo: the inclusion of one painting by a Russian for every painting by a foreign artist lent from a Russian museum.

IN MOST respects the national characteristics ran true to form at Brussels. The Dutch pavilion, devoted to the obsessive national problem of water control, was a masterpiece of invention. A model farm, a giant wave-making machine, an actual section of a dike, the bridge of a ship, tulip fields, and road signs all provided a brilliant re-creation of the energetic mode of life of the Netherlands. The British scored heavily — particularly with the royalistic Belgian visitor—by an entrance hall emblazoned with the rich ceremonial trappings of monarchy. The Swiss pavilion was impeccable in all the minutiae of presentation, and its food was the best; West Germany, a model of orderly, precise exhibition technique. Most of the Latin countries, with a fine disregard for deadlines, opened late, especially Italy, Spain, and Brazil. Theory won out over practice with the French, whose startling cantilevered pavilion ran afoul of a treacherous terrain in construction, and its completion was delayed interminably by compound misfortunes. I he Japanese garden was a placid Oriental retreat, and the Moroccan and Tunisian pavilions combined to produce a strident, bustling bazaar.

In the American pavilion, it was our mission to bring to a predominantly Western European audience a fresh image of the American people at work and play, citizens of a vast, continental land whose topography, climate, and regional strength could produce great individual diversity within the national unity. Western Europe knows and uses the American automobile, the supermarket, and a plethora of our household appliances. It seemed to us that rather than emphasize the machines and artifacts of everyday life, we should try to reveal the conditions of thought, process, and custom that have made the United States the kind of society it is, that have brought about our massive technological accomplishment, our elevated standard of living, and the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of our material progress. The Europeans, almost without exception, found this approach gratifying. Editorial comment throughout the Western European press was laudatory. (In this connection, it is an interesting commentary on the ways of the free world that the press of each nation — notably the British, West German, and American — was rather bitterly critical of its own national effort at Brussels, yet charitably disposed to the contribution of its allies.)

The leading Belgian independent newspaper, early in the Fair, expressed pleasure with the American concept and concluded that “it must take a very great nation indeed to be willing to spend millions in order to plant a little beauty in foreign soil.” After the Fair closed, the same newspaper observed: “As for the United States, one might have believed that it would present itself again as pioneers of the new world, as daring technicians, covering a continent with railways, highways, bridges, and skyscrapers. It is manifest that this concept of America is beginning to be outmoded. The American people are no longer in the fullness of youth. They have reached adulthood. They are devoting themselves to the hope of discovering a civilization less charged with pain and suffering, turning anew toward culture and the joy of living, a civilization which has already acquired a taste for self-criticism. The American pavilion of today is one about which the city of Paris might once have dreamed.”

The American theater was the jewel box of the foreign section. As the Fair progressed, it became increasingly popular with the Belgians, who returned time after time to enjoy its changing programs. The eventual decision of the Belgian government to accept the American site after the Fair and keep the major building elements intact (an acceptance not extended to any other foreign participant) came about largely because of Belgian public demand that “their” theater not be demolished.

MAKING allowance for the vast difference between a Western European audience and one composed of people who have never been outside of the Soviet Union, some of the American exhibits which had great appeal at Brussels are expected to do equally well at Moscow this summer and will form part of the first United States National Exhibit to be held in Soviet Russia. To Moscow will go the battery of voting machines, suggested for Brussels by President Eisenhower to illuminate the American’s right to vote by secret ballot; the fascinating Ramac computer, which enchanted millions at Brussels by its lightningswift response to questions of history, delivered in any one of ten languages; and Walt Disney’s 360-degrec film, Circarama, a highly illusionistic depiction of the United States seen in the round. Circarama was the greatest single attraction at Brussels. Twelve thousand people a day saw it for six months, and countless thousands were frustrated by the endless queues.

That the voting machines should be going to Moscow is a particularly appealing thought, for they were the object of intense curiosity for the Soviet leaders who visited Brussels. Voroshilov, taking a good-natured tour of the American pavilion, examined them at length. And Mikoyan — who paid a surprise visit, incognito, late in the afternoon of the Fourth of July, when all of our officials were absent at a reception for President Hoover—was equally intrigued. But Soviet Commissioner General Ryjkov, a huge, dour man, was less easily impressed. Doubting the machines’ “anti-fix” qualities, he asked permission to send two Soviet engineers to inspect them. Several hours later, having gone over the machines from top to bottom and front to back, his experts shook their heads and left unceremoniously.

The people themselves breathed life into the Fair. Of an early morning before the great crowds arrived the pavilions held the quiet of anticipation, and at night after closing they were like a museum asleep. Because of the centrality of Brussels — there are 130 million people residing within a radius of two hundred miles — a family living in the Rhineland or Holland or Luxembourg or northern France could arrive by chartered bus, armed with a lunch box and a bottle of wine, spend a long, full day in the grounds, and be home again that night. It was estimated that some 40 million visitors paid the established admission charge, and of that number 300,000 were Americans. No comparable number of tourists Came from the Soviet Union and the satellite countries; instead they sent an endless series of small delegations, professional groups, and trade experts, who came under official auspices.

For those of us who were there day in and day out, the most exciting testament to international understanding was constantly before our eyes in the persons of the 1800 young people who comprised the guide corps of the participating nations. Early in the Fair, a young hostess from Argentina initiated the Jeune-Expo, a voluntary organization of guides and junior staff members. Soon there were few eligibles who had not joined and, by midsummer, Jeunexpo boasted some 1500 members from fifty countries. Jeunexpo held record hops and beer parties and became a frequent forum for serious, collective discussions of world problems—a kind of junior United Nations Assembly. Late in the Fair, the group took over the American theater for two semipublic performances of the Jeunexpo Revue, a hilarious musical spoof of the Fair and its personalities and a most heart-warming manifestation of international solidarity, constructed as it was with the uncomplicated tools of friendship and humor. At the end of the Fair, Jeunexpo published a list of the names and permanent addresses of its members, with justifiable confidence that this cross section of youthful world leadership would enjoy, and would in fact cherish, the prospect of future meetings.

Will there be another World’s Fair and, if so, when and where? Because of the vast expense involved, and because of the swiftly changing pattern of international communication, there are those who contend that Brussels may well have seen the last huge world exposition. Yet similar — if smaller — fairs arc being held with increasing frequency. This summer, the United States and the Soviet Union arc exchanging national exhibits for the first time; the trade fair continues to have its annual run in the world’s mercantile centers from Barcelona to Bangkok, from Düsseldorf to Delhi. Seattle is already planning a large PanPacific scientific exhibition for 1961. The Austrian government has applied to the international commission on world’s fairs, sitting permanently in Paris, for authority to hold an exposition at Vienna in 1968. So, in spite of the world’s changing face, in spite of the staggering outlays of energy and funds demanded, in spite of the “conspicuous waste,” the ephemeral quality, and the terrible swiftness with which a world’s fair runs its course, I suspect that the world has not yet grown weary of the great spectacle.