How big was the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building at the 1893 World’s Fair? The MLAB was the largest building in the world and the largest roofed building that had ever erected at that time.

The south front of the Manufactures Building at the 1893 World’s Fair. At 787 feet wide, this is the shorter end of the mammoth structure. [Image from Picturesque World’s Fair (W.B. Conkey, 1894); digitally edited and © worldsfairchicago1893.com.]

At 1687 feet long by 787 feet wide and covering a total of 31 acres, the size of this architectural wonder was difficult for many visitors to comprehend. Comparisons helped. “Any church in Chicago could be placed in the vestibule of St. Peter’s Church at Rome, but this building is three times as large as St. Peter’s,” explained one guidebook. [Week at the Fair 132] It offered several other comparisons, noting that this building was:

  • four times larger than the old Roman Coliseum, which seated 80,000 people;
  • more than twice the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza;
  • large enough for six baseball games to be played at the same time without any crowding;
  • longer that the Eiffel Tower is tall (1,083 ft);
  • large enough for the standing army of Russia to be mobilized under its roof (though offered without explanation of how this army would be permitted into Chicago).

That’s big. To depict the mammoth size of this building visually, The American Architect and Building News “prepared as part of an object lesson these two diagrams which give in rather impressive information as to the superficial magnitude of the largest of the Fair buildings.” Five well-known buildings—the U. S. Capital (A), the Great Pyramid (B), Winchester Cathedral (C), the second Madison Square Garden (D), and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (E)—could easily fit inside the ground area of the MLAB.

The area of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building compared to (top) five landmark structures and (bottom) five other Exposition buildings. [Image from American Architect and Building News Dec. 23, 1893.]

Here are two additional comparisons. The MLAB is more than twenty-three times the size of a standard American football field. All thirty-two NFL teams could play simultaneously with seven fields remaining for some marching band shows. That’s big. If Chicago’s Willis Tower could be laid on its side, the building (1,451 ft) could fit easily inside the MLAB, though its antennas would poke out by about forty feet. That’s big.

The area of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building compared to a standard football field and to the Willis Tower. [Image © worldsfairchicago1893.com.]

How much time would it take for a visitor to the Columbian Exposition to see the exhibits inside the MLAB? A Kansas editor did the math to advise readers who may be planning a trip to Chicago:

“It may cost considerable to attend the World’s Fair, but there is no doubt of the people getting their money’s worth in the Fair proper anyway. For instance, a person entering the Manufacturers building Monday morning and walking four miles an hour for ten hours a day, could not pass through the aisles of that building until Tuesday of the following week, taking only one rest a day. If three minutes were spent at each exhibit in that building alone, it would take twenty-one months at ten hours a day, six days a week to ‘do’ that one building.”

Of course, the Columbian Exposition was only open for six months!

Interior of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building looking north along the central “Columbia Avenue.” [Image from The Graphic History of the Fair (Graphic Co., 1894).]

SOURCES

“The Area of the Liberal Arts Building at Chicago” American Architect and Building News Dec. 23, 1893, p. 151.

“It may cost …” Centralia (KS) Journal Jun. 9, 1893, p. 2.

Rand, McNally & Co.’s A Week at the Fair. Rand, McNally & Co., 1893, p. 132.