The Fair’s branching theme diagram and Henry Dreyfuss’s Democracity diorama design for the key theme exhibit within the Perisphere structure (with origins in Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse) together suggest an information architecture of multiple narrative axes exploring visual typologies and narrative topologies—ranging from linear (essayistic pathway) to relational (interactive encounter in recombinant database display). Eighty years later, these radiant structures offer points from which light emanates and shadows are cast: on the cusp of World War II, the 1939 World’s Fair’s seeming assumption of Democracy’s invincibility, and its dominant message of Progress realized through endless production, are again tested in the precarious global conditions of today.
Using the worldwide web as metaphor for an updated ‘world’s fair,’ Shadow Fair can operate as both repository and engine; site and interpretive narrative model—virtual, distributed, trafficked, browsed; informative, meandering, entertaining—requiring a structural strategy, conceptual infrastructure, user navigation, site hosting, and viewer participation. The archive’s diagrams and texts inspire navigational pathways and zones. The ‘pavilion,’ as temporary structure intrinsic to the 1939 Fair’s site, provides a metaphorical construct for aggregating thematic content in provisional forms or encounters. Shadow Fair aims to be a dynamic graphical environment for research that both reflects the Fair’s historical material archive and explores its connections to the present.
As this project continues to be refined—and its possible formal outcomes become clearer—all of these resources and ideas will be added to, updated, extended, edited, rejected, etc. For now these serve as notes and illustrations for the many ways the 1939 World's Fair World of Tomorrow provokes a critical response/an update/a refutation/a chance to be seen in light of the world of today.
Notes on structure: Themes / Categories
Themes (from Official Guide):
Amusement
Communications
Community Interests
Food
Government
Production and Distribution
Science and Education
Theme Diagram:
Government
Federal
State
Municipal
Foreign
Welfare
Health
Public Welfare
Recreation
Art
Religion
Means of Production
Materials
Power
Tools
Means of Distribution
Sales
Cooperative
Mail order [online]
Advertising
Means of Transportation
Land
Air
Automotive
Water
Means of Business Administration
Finance
Equipment
Means of Communication
Press
Radio
TV
Photography
Film [video]
Advertising
Telephone
Telegraph [internet]
Comfort
Clothing
Sustenance
Shelter
Community Planning
Dwellings
Industrial Building
Formal types:
photograph
letter
diagram
document
text
typography
map
drawing
advertisement
newspaper
schematic/plan
model
exhibition display
film
sound recording
event
performance
Other terms/attributes: motion
interaction
sequence
scene
scale
process/system
color
light
shadow
collection
spectacle
costume
surface