Was Vienna the most cultured city in the world? 1873 World Exhibition.

Rotunda and gardens

on the 1873 poster

Marc Maison

The 1851 World Fair in London had been vitally important, because it was the first! Until then, there had been national expositions in Paris ev­ery 4 years, but never a world project of such size. This was Prince Al­bert’s opportunity to display the achievements of industrialisation where British design and technology were leading the world.

In 1873, it was Vienna’s turn to host the 5th great World’s Fair and the first in a German-speaking country. Em­peror Franz-Joseph I commissioned it as soon as he returned from Par­is World’s Fair of 1867, to commem­or­ate his 25 years of reign, and to show off a cos­mop­olitan Austria-Hungary that was open to int­ernational trade.

Constructing the site, 1872-3 

Structurae        

His Exhibition was built on Prater Park where the arriv­al of coffee-houses led to the start of the Wurst­el­prater, a cent­re of relaxed ent­ert­ainment: lawns, gardens, lakes, forests. Prater Park, near the Dan­ube River, had prev­ious­ly been the imperial hunting grounds, bequ­eathed to the Vien­n­ese by Kaiser Josef II in 1766. The impressive grounds were much larger that the Paris grounds where the previous World Fair had been held, to showcase Austro-Hungarian indus­t­ry and culture. Prep­ar­ations for the Fair cost £23.4 million, lasting from May-Nov 1873 and hosting 7,225,000 visitors.

The buildings and landscaped grounds of all C19th world fairs, including Vienna’s, were directly related to the architectural and urban design traditions of the host cities. At the same time, they possessed ideal­is­ed qualities that made them dis­tinct from other contemporary build­ings. The result of col­lab­or­ative planning among architects, engineers and plan­ning commit­tees, the exhibitions were built to evoke ideal civ­ic sett­ings, their exhib­ition palaces, pavilions and gard­ens forming exemplary complexes that syn­th­esised both invention and tradition.

There were c26,000 exhibitors housed in different buildings er­ec­ted for this fair, including the Rotunda, a large circular building in Prater Park designed by Scot­t­ish eng­in­eer John Scott Russell. A central build­ing that became the symbol of the World Fair, the Rotunda was by far the largest domed structure in the world when it was built, with a 108 ms diameter. See the magnificent view of the rotunda towards the elongated gallery escape, after the picturesque, grotesque and instructive pavilions and sp­ec­ial buildings, after the well-tended meadow and forest areas, they wrote.

British Machine Hall

The Baron Karl von Hasenauer built the Palace of Industry, with a cen­t­ral rotunda gathering machines, industrial products and works of art. In the park, the national pavilions competed with beauty and or­ig­in­al­ity, and at this World’s Fair, many pavilions were also dedicated to the world’s pop­ular cultures, farms and fishing houses. The Pavilion of Foreign Princes was designed for visiting sovereigns to rest!

The opening of every exhibition was usually by royalty. Vienna’s Fair of 1873 was naturally inaugurated by Emperor Francis Josef, with imposing ceremonies in the presence of vast throngs. The day was immortalised by the music of Handel and Strauss.

The Vienna exhibition set off Western nations' pav­il­ions against East­ern pavilions, with the host, the Austro-Hungarian Emp­ire, setting it­self at the juncture between East and West. This was the place where many peoples brought the best of their culture and ind­ustry. Approp­riately the 1873 Ottoman Pavilion was more prominent than its pav­ilion in prev­ious world fairs. Egyp­t, which had its own pavilion despite be­ing a territory of the Ot­toman Empire, included small rep­l­icas of not­ab­le Ottoman buildings and models of vernacular archit­ec­t­ure eg a rep­lica of the Sultan Ahmed Foun­tain in Topkapı Palace, a model Istanbul resid­ence, Turkish bath and bazaar. This palace built by Khedive Ismail Pasha was particularly admired.                  

The Japanese display, 

seen from one of the Ottoman minarets, Wiki

The Chinese Tea Pav­il­ion was per­h­aps the most original. The U.S de­signed an In­d­ian wigwam, where gin and other spirits were served, and Br­asil’s Pav­il­ion displayed rich minerals and rare woods. The Japanese Pav­ilion had its own garden where a small bamboo bridge crossed a miniat­ure riv­er. The garden was decorated with bronzes, earth­enware, stone lan­ter­ns, temp­le and lavish copy of the 15+ ms Kamakura Buddha.     

The U.S Wigwam Pavilion

Artblart

The industrialists, who showed their products at world fairs, felt they were benefitting the whole of human society. After all, Vienna World Exhibition was dedicated to culture and industry. And it was the sewing machine industry that was most widely represented: from North America, France, Den­mark and Britain, but particularly from Germ­any and Austria.

Most countries’ World Fair structures were meant to be dismantled at the end of the festivities, the Eiffel Tower (Paris 1889) and the Ex­hibition Buildings (Melbourne 1880) were fortunate except­ions. In spite of this, the Vienna Fair itself was disapp­oin­t­ing in terms of the num­ber of visitors (because of flooding, stock market crash and cholera). In the end, rather than the expected 20 million visitors, only 7.2 million came, and result­ed in a major loss. So although the Rotunda was in­t­ended to be torn down, the lack of finan­ces meant that there were insuff­ic­ient funds to do this and so it rem­ained stand­ing.

The 61 m diameter giant Riesenrad Wheel, at entrance of Vienna’s Prater, was not er­ected until 1897, to celebrate Emperor Franz Josef I's golden Jub­ilee. How tragic that the largest Vienna fire broke out in 1937, after which very little of the main building was left.

Read Great Exhibitions: The World Fairs 1851-1937 by Robert Wilson, 2008