Don Duncan had a
nice recap of the nearly century old Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition,
written in scrapbook form for his late grandmother who had seen it herself.
We’re getting close now to that anniversary. Here are a couple photos of the Foreign Building and Mines Building.
Click for high res.
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| Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Detail of Foreign Building, Howard and Galloway, Architects, Schock and Huntington, Associate Architects. Detail of Mines Building, Howard and Galloway, Architects. Photos by F.H. Nowell. The Western Architect, July 1909. |
Actually, the building on the right was planned as the Mines Building, but before the fair opened it became the Oriental Palace. The Mines Building ended up behind the Agriculture Building
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=cybertour.cfm&file_id=8678&frame=11
It appears that this change was made very late in the construction phase, as this error shows up on all sorts of stuff from that era; postcards, maps, promotional material, etc. And it’s pretty much next to impossible to find a good photo of the actual Mines Building, which was fairly lackluster in appearance.
Thanks Jess. These shots make my day. I’ve never understood why these buildings were not considered permanent. They were gorgeous.
Must have seemed odd, having an Oriental Palace with words like “Metalurgy” stamped above its windows.
Exactly. We were never able to figure out exactly why the two buildings switched. It might have been that the Oriental exhibits better complemented those in the Foreign Building, which was directly across the Court of Honor. It’s odd because as you can see in the image, the two buildings were designed by the same archictects and were very similar. Why the Oriental Building started out as the Mines Building is a mystery.
I don’t have time right now to look up what many of these buildings were made of, but I do know that most of the buildings at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair were made of plaster. They were already cracking by the end of the fair and were never meant to be permanent. Is that the same story with this fair?
Shannon: Same story.
See:
http://www.vintageseattle.org/2008/10/16/manufacturers%e2%80%99-building-plans/
Sorry, I meant “Metallvrgy”