Chicago Tribune April 4, 1890
THE CIRCUS TENT PLAN.
The plans submitted to the Real-Estate Board by Architect Jenison for placing the Worid’s Fair exhibition under a single roof covering a space of 190 acres, supported from a center pole 1,600 feet high, like a huge circus tent, are ingenious, but are they not impracticable and totally irrelevant so far as the purposes of such a Fair are concerned? Even admitting that there are no engineering impossibilities in the way, that the huge structure could be safely anchored to the piles upon which it is proposed to rest, and that its corrugated iron or canvas roofing could be made to resist the action of high winds over a quarter of a mite up in the air, even then we submit that the vast tent would be totally unsuited to the objects of a World’s Fair, however ingenious or successful it might be as a skyscraper, erected for the purpose of beating the Eiffel Tower.
- A round building like a large tent, 3,000 feet in diameter, or as far as from Michigan Avenue to Franklin Street.
Center Pole: 1,492 feet high. Elevators in pole rise 1,000 feet.
Galleries: 75 feet wide
Entrances from outside only on first gallery.
Under First Gallery six tracks for Railroad Exhibits.
First Gallery a Grand Boulevard for driveway, cafes, etc., etc.
Second Gallery for Race Track, 1¾ miles long
Twenty-four stairways from first gallery down to main floor
Grand Canal, 150 feet wide, with 24 bridges.
Picture Galleries in fire proof vaults under high part of amphitheatre.
Amphitheatre in center, 600 feet in diameter, 60,000 seats.
A structure oftbis kind, in the first place, would violate every canon of good taste and prove to be an artistic and architectural abomination. The charm of the Paris Exposition largely consisted in the varying architectural lines and artistic decorations of the detached buildings, each one having been constructed and ornamented with the idea of relevancy to the use or purpose for which it was designed. This could not be secured in this circus plan. To combine different styles of adornment and of architecture in one building would only result in a hodgepodge that would be ridiculous. Again, how could exhibition be made to the best effect in such a building? Where would the acres of pictures be hung, for instance, so that they could be easily seen and studied to the best advantage? How would the statuary be disposed? Where would the music-hall be located? What would be done with the machinery, which requires strong ceilings and supports for its miles of shafting? What could be done with the numerous articles wnich must be hung up and with others which must have rooms to themselves in order to be properly displayed? In such a building it would be absolutely necessary to have wails, partitions, and compartments, but these would at once destroy the line of sight and the effect intended of 190 acres of space would be destroyed.
Jenison Tent Plan
Detail
Again, the Federal Government wants to erect its own building, and there may be foreign Governments which will want to do the same, as twenty of them did at Paris, and may not fancy dumping their exhibits into this huge circus tent with its hundreds of rings.
Architect Jenison estimates that his building would cost $6,000,000. If it did not come nearer $20,000,000 we should be surprised, and in the end what should we have? A building that would never satisfy exhibiters; that would not show exhibits to the best ad-vantage; that would mix things up in an incongruous manner-pictures and machinery, and goods, statues, and locomotives, thrashing machines and bric-a-brac, etc., that would distract, confuse, and tire the visitor; and that would sacrifice all ideas of good taste merely to beat the Eiffel Tower.
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