Publication detail

The Materiality of a Pavilion: Agency of Materials at the Czecho-Slovak Pavilion in the Turbulent Times of 1938‒1940

JACKSON, L.

Original Title

The Materiality of a Pavilion: Agency of Materials at the Czecho-Slovak Pavilion in the Turbulent Times of 1938‒1940

Type

lecture

Language

English

Original Abstract

The Czecho-Slovak pavilion which was built at the World Fair in the Flushing Meadows Park in 1939 and 1940 has been recently described and interpreted numerously in terms of politics of architecture and cultural politics of international exhibitions. Its conceptual continuity with the previous Paris pavilion in 1937, or its eventful preparation under the “Second Republic” and the rise of the Bohemian and Moravian Protectorate are well known as well as the Czechoslovak bizarre interpretation of the American historic milestone – the diorama of George Washington‘s inauguration that was exhibited there. What I think is missing in discussing the inter-war national World Fair pavilions is the relationship between the architectural and design forms of the buildings themselves, the exhibition layouts and the purpose of the states’ participation, which was rather the promotion of international trade and resources/product export than showing off distinctive national cultures on the one hand and national modernities on the other hand. Having that said, I would like to offer a new interpretation of the architecture of the 1939 Czecho-Slovak pavilion and its exhibitions as a result of the history of materiality, based on new archival resources found in a privately owned papers of Jaroslav J. Polivka, the building engineer and organizer of the project. This archival fund contains full correspondence and redesigned structural plans. Based on the theory of the agency of materials, represented by scholars like Sandra Karina Löschke, I would discuss the following questions in my paper: In the unique political situation in 1938 and 1939, what was the contradiction between using and presenting the original Czechoslovak materials (Kladno steel) and the American resources (Pennsylvania steel) to finish the pavilion, how it affected the final design of the building and how the enormously fast change of Czechoslovak export priorities between 1937 and 1939 (which included the foundation of the Bata company branch in New York) shaped the structure of the presentation.

Keywords

pavilion; Czecho-Slovak pavilion; world fair; world of tomorrow;

Authors

JACKSON, L.

Released

4. 4. 2022

Publisher

Exhibitions, New Nations and the Human Factor, 1873–1939

Location

Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris

URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnp6k3e-KUU

BibTex

@misc{BUT177674,
  author="Ladislav {Jackson}",
  title="The Materiality of a Pavilion: Agency of Materials at the Czecho-Slovak Pavilion in the Turbulent Times of 1938‒1940",
  year="2022",
  publisher="Exhibitions, New Nations and the Human Factor, 1873–1939",
  address="Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris",
  url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnp6k3e-KUU",
  note="lecture"
}

Documents

Materiality of a Pavilion.pdf