Every visitor to the Exposition who has the time should visit the foreign buildings. It
cannot be said that they are the points of greatest interest, nor even that they are equal in that respect to the State buildings, but to intelligent and inquiring mind they furnish an insight into national character and habits which is interesting almost to the point of excitement. They are like so many mirrors held up. to the faces of foreign nations, reflecting at a glance their feelings towards America and the Exposition, and the faults and excellences as well of their civilizations.
These buildings should be inspected together, without losing the impression made by one of them before the next is seen; and their location in the park is admirably calculated to facilitate such a tour of observation. They may be described as located in the triangle meluded partly between the north inlet and the lake shore, running north. ward from the inlet. This triangle has at its three angles the French Building, the Canadian Building, and the Brazilian Building, and measures 300 yards on each side. Of the eighteen foreign buildings only two lie outside the triangle, one being the British Building on the lake shore, just across tha road from the Canada Building, and the other being the Japanese Building, which has concealed itself on the Wooded Isle. If one will get a good idea of their geography and then devote a day to visiting these foreign buildings he will be surprised and delighted at the clear cut impressions that he will receive concerning all these foreign contributors to the interest and the glory of the Exposition.
In setting out to “do” the foreign buildings an American, on the principle that blood is thicker than water, will naturally begin at Victoria House, which more than anything else in the park represents Great Britain, the British Government, and the English character. The way that the location and surroundings of this building have been made to simulate England is astonishing and somewhat amusing. Victoria House stands on a little peninsula, formed by the lake shore and the inlet, with nothing between it and the roaring surf of old Michigan but a little courtyard. So near by as to appear a part of it is the battleship Illinois with its long guns run out menacingly in every direction, as if to protect Victoria House and announce to all that ” Britannia rules the wave.” The building has no neighbor, for between it and Canada’s building, the club house of its greatest colony even, rolls the Atlantic of a broad, graveled roadway. It is the only foreign building in the park with a high iron railing and closed gates around it. It all looks as if the very genius of insulation, dignity, red tape, and reserve had presided over the conception. One almost expects to find carved over the entrance “Noli me tangere.” Every one has heard that the interior of Victoria House is well worth seeing. Its decorations were all brought from England, and are reproductions from Sandringham, Hatfield House, and many other great English homes.
From Great Britain one naturally passes to her colonies, the nearest of which is established in the Canada Building across the way, and he is generally gratified to learn that mother and daughter are nothing alike. There is no fence around the building and no locks the doors. Visitors tramp through its halls all day, at will, and the Commissioners seem glad to have them do it. The result is that Canada is immensely popular at the Exposition, although it has carried off more than its share of John Boyd Thacher’s medals. Just west of the Canadian Building, which is architecturally simple and unassuming. stands the building of New South Wales, another English colony. It has a more imposing entrance, and the interior is merely a large picture gallery, illustrating not only the scenery and productions of the country but also its art. The place is of no great general interest except as exhibiting the difference between Englishmen and English colonists. The doors are wide open, and the hall is crowded from morning until night. A few steps more and one reaches the India Building, where he finds still less English reserve. It was erected by the Indian merchants with the aid of the Indian Government for the double purpose of selling a stock of Indian art manufactures and of introducing into American markets Indian tea. Ceylon, England’s other Eastern colony, lodges in a teakwood pavilion on the lake shore, acting as a sort of buffer between Germany and France. The building is a reproduction of some of the most ancient temple ruins in Ceylon, and every stick of it was carved there and brought to this country. Having finished Great Britain’s dominions one turns naturally to the consideration of the French Building, which fills the northern angle of the foreign triangle in attractive proximity to the lake. This structure is of white staff and so severely and beautifully classic that it looks as if it might have been picked up in Athens and set down in Jackson Park. It consists of a larger and a smaller pavilion connected in the rear with a corridor open on the inner side and looking out on a court and a flower garden. The smaller pavilion is devoted to the City of Paris and is filled with drawings and other material illustrating its municipal government. These illustrations extend along the corridor, also to the large pavilion, which is of a national character.
The largest, costliest, and most picturesque of all the foreign buildings is that of Germany, beautifully located on the lake shore, with the willows behind it, Ceylon on its left, Spain on its right, and an unobstructed view of Take Michigan in front. The building excited deep interest from the day that its foundations were laid. As the pile grew it appeared more and more like an unfolding and a revelation of the German character. From the apex of the globe, which is the main feature of the fagade, rises a minaret, almost Saracenic in its delicacy, which looks down on everything about it, as if to emphasize German daring and German aspiration. Every side is covered with painted inscriptions celebrating German poetry, German folk-lore, German philosophy, German wine, German military prowess, and German piety. On the southwest corner rises a heavy tower which represents the schloss of Strasburg, and in it are placed the three deep-mouthed, musical cast-steel bells which the Emperor and his family presented to Grace Church in Berlin, which they erected in honor of Frederick. The German house is as German within as without. While the building is divided into a great many fine halls and galleries, fitted up and adorned in an almost extravagant manner, and completely filled with exhibits, these exhibits pertain almost entirely to bibliography. Shelf after shelf and room after room are loaded down with all that is rare and costly in books. At Germany’s right hand stands Spain, the country in whose honor, one may say, the entire Exposition was planned. As in the case of Germany, Spain’s architect has turned to the past for his motives, and has made the Spanish Building a reproduction of the Board of Trade of Valencia, erected in the fifteenth century and used since as a silk mart. The structure is intensely characteristic of Spain and its people. It is of boxlike simplicity on the outside, and full of the beauties of the Moorish architecture within. With trifling exceptions the space is thrown into a single lofty hall, with numerous spiral columns and joined ceiling, all in white. The walls are hung with four or five large oil paintings.
The Norwegian Building, nearly in the rear of the German Building, and the Swedish Building, on the south side of the foreign triangle, represent in fact a single foreign government. Both of them are built almost entirely of wood, and both of them in imitation of the churches in these countries constructed several centuries ago. The Swedish Building is by far the more important of the two and contains the entire Swedish exhibit. It is one of three buildings out of perhaps 300 that has a clock in it. The boast of Sweden is its iron, which is of such a superior quality that it hardly has a rival. It is therefore deeply interesting to inspect the great iron exhibit in this building. There are three foreign countries that have erected buildings at Jackson Park solely for the purpose of exhibiting their coffee, and if possible creating a market for it in imposing the United States. These are Brazil, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. Of the three buildings the Brazilian is the largest and most It is of pure white staff, while the others are of staff garnished with green festoons and floral figures. On the south front of the triangle, between New South Wales and India, stands the Haytian Building, a place of real interest. The structure contains the entire Haytian exhibit, which consists of the natural productions of the country. To the west of the Swedish Building lie the Venezuelan and Turkish Buildings, which contain the sole exhibits of these countries. The Venezuelan Building, which is of white staff relieved with festoons of green leaves, is devoted to paintings and antiquities,
Leave a Reply