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The Times on December 21, 1999 reported what was planned in Paris for the year 2000 celebrations. As the article indicated 'it could hardly compete with its 1900 extravaganza'. It will be seen from this article, that the Paris Exposition of 1900 was a major international event. Given the scale of the exposition, it was thought it would be a simple task of looking in a reference book or an encyclopaedia to get the facts. Very surprisingly, this proved not to be the case and we found that much research was necessary. Not only does there seem to be little in print in English but information from French sources is very sparse. If the subject had been the Paris International Exhibition of 1889 there would have been no such difficulty. Whilst this was a much smaller exhibition and not having the added interest of the year 1900, the most significant reason for its popularity was the opening of the Eiffel Tower.
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| Fig 1: Exposition ticket |
The theme of the exposition was the 20th Century. The exposition was planned to be novel in that it was to be gigantic. In fact, records show that some 48 million people attended the exposition. (A ticket is illustrated - fig 1). Records tend to show that it was not until the Montreal Exhibition of 1967 that any International exhibition came close to such a total. (Interestingly, the 1851 Crystal Palace 'Great' Exhibition in London attracted 'just' 6 million visitors.) As other indications of size, records show that there were many thousands of exhibitors, 46 per cent of whom were French and there were 80,000 objects on display. The exposition site dominated both sides of the Seine with the river as the exposition's 'backbone'. The exposition site totalled some 112 hectares (the 1904 St Louis Exhibition in USA occupied 500 hectares). The site covered a quarter of the city of Paris and included: le Gros-Caillou, les Champ Elysées, ('Esplanade des Invalides, les quais, le Trocedéro, and le Champs des Mars. There were 36 entrances, the most important being called the 'porte Monumentale' or 'La Porte monumentale de la Concorde' (south west of la Place de la Concorde) which was much criticised. The entrances had turnstiles that were designed to admit up to 20,000 visitors an hour. Most of the buildings were in the 'art nouveau' style. Today, just three of the buildings survive - le Grand Palais, le Petit Palais and the Pont Alexandre III (recently repainted in gold and grey). The Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris was held from April 15 until November 12, 1900. It was first proposed by a parliamentary Deputy, F Delonde, in 1892. His suggestion was an exhibition to compete with that to be held in Berlin in 1900. Not everyone was in favour of such an exhibition. At the time there was much preoccupation with the Dreyfus Affair. Also, there was the disruption from the work on 'Line 1' of the Metro (inaugurated on July 19, 1900 between Porte de Vincennes and Porte Maillet - in all 10.6km) and the preparations for the 1900 Olympics. The exposition took years to construct and as early as 1898 parties were held for the site workers. |
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| Fig 2: Some of the best 'art nouveau' designs vignettes |
Very much an innovation, a significant purpose of the exposition was to entertain the people as much as to inform and educate them. Methods were used which are not out of place 100 years later including special free and discount offers to entice visitors to the various attractions. Between le pont des Invalides and le Pont de ('Alma, there was a street with many attractions. In addition to numerous different cafes the attractions included: Theatre des Auteurs Gais (authors); Maison du Rire; Theatre des Tableaux Vivants; Theatre des Bonhommes Guillaume; Chateau a I'Envers, Jardin de la Chanson; La Roulette; the Grand Guignol. A particular feature of the exposition was the number of 'exotic' people (natives) from the new colonies in their own 'villages'. There was great controversy about the number of 'bare breasted female natives'. There were in excess of 40 national pavilions. Also, there was a large numbe( of 'palaces' and 'pavilions' which included: Petit Palais, Grand Palais, Palais du Genie Civil et Moyens de Transport, Palais de la Mécanique and Palais de I'Optique. |
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