180. Picturesque World’s Fair – Looking East from the Golden Door

LOOKING EAST FROM THE GOLDEN DOOR.—Very few views, possibly not more than one, were taken eastward from the Golden Door. That remarkable portal was so striking in itself that it did not occur, apparently, to any one of the various photographers to take any picture in its vicinity which did not include the glittering entrance. There were numerous views near the southern extremity of the lagoons, but there was only one taken at the extreme end and looking across [...]

By Randy|2025-12-14T09:51:58-06:00December 14th, 2025|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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Angels in the Spandrels: The Winged Decorations of Louis Sullivan’s Transportation Building

Critics glorified and reviled Louis Sullivan’s renegade design for the Transportation Building at the 1893 World’s Fair. The polychromatic color scheme and the grand Golden Door received the most commentary at the time of the Columbian Exposition, and both elements continue to fascinate students of architecture today. Louis Sullivan’s striking design for the Transportation Building featured a polychromatic façade and majestic “Golden Door” entrance on the east side. [Image from Picturesque World’s Fair. W.B. Conkey, 1894; digitally edited [...]

By Scott|2024-09-06T10:41:43-05:00April 14th, 2024|Categories: HISTORY, RESEARCH|Tags: , , |4 Comments
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161. Picturesque World’s Fair – The Golden Door, from the Wooded Island

THE GOLDEN DOOR, FROM THE WOODED ISLAND.— Among the great number of photographs, taken from different points of view, of the famous "Golden Door" it is doubtful if any surpassed in charming effect that from which the accompanying illustration is taken. The point afforded on the Wooded Island seems to have been at just the right distance from the Transportation Building and in just the right direction to allow of an absolute presentation of detail, while, at the same [...]

By Randy|2025-04-24T17:45:52-05:00February 18th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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The Fair as a Spectacle, Part 2: In Search of the Picturesque

Continued from Part 1 [Note: This text includes names and descriptions now considered culturally disparaging. Please see our statement on “Potentially Offensive Text and Images.”] THE FAIR AS A SPECTACLE. How it seemed to a visitor—Strolling and dreaming by day and by night. By Charles Mulford Robinson Part 2: In Search of the Picturesque But in that brief view a lesson was also taught you which you took to heart at once. It was that the charm of the [...]

By Scott|2023-07-02T13:10:12-05:00July 1st, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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The Making of the White City (Part 2)

[Continued from Part 1] A great stage decked with ambitious scenery Perhaps the first thing that would strike a stranger entering the World’s Fair grounds in the summer of 1892 would be the silence of the place, the next the almost theatrical unreality of the impression by the sight of an assemblage of buildings so startlingly out of the common in size and form. When I speak of the silence, I mean the effect of silence. There are seven [...]

By Scott|2025-07-23T10:15:53-05:00February 13th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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119. Picturesque World’s Fair – The Transportation Building

THE TRANSPORTATION BUILDING.—The Transportation Building was unique among the great structures of the Columbian Exposition in that it was the single departure from a general rule, the contrast and the foil to all the others. It was distinct in its style of architecture, and alone was decorated exteriorly in colors. It was not of those buildings which won for the Exposition the title of "The White City." The main building, located just west of the south end of the [...]

By Randy|2021-06-08T09:23:03-05:00May 30th, 2021|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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“Halcyon Days in the Dream City’’ Part 16: The Transportation Building

Halcyon Days in the Dream City by Mrs. D. C. Taylor Continued from Part 15 Let us go through the “Golden Gate,” not the gate of the Holy City, but a gate the architect of which must have been dreaming of wondrous Bible imagery, when he designed it.[1] Arch beyond arch, receding, diminishing as they recede, till the last one is about the dimensions of some grand cathedral door, while the noble proportions of the first, are almost awe [...]

By Scott|2021-04-02T11:18:24-05:00November 29th, 2020|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |2 Comments
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93. Picturesque World’s Fair – Southwest from the Government Building

SOUTHWEST, FROM THE GOVERNMENT BUILDING—The view southwest from the roof of the United States Government Building embraced a great number of attractive objects. The east lagoon and more than half the Wooded Island appeared conspicuously in the foreground, and there was no elevated place in the grounds from which the island and lagoon could be seen together that did not command a sight worth seeing, for any lover of the beautiful. To the left, immediately m front, is the [...]

By Randy|2020-01-26T06:35:44-06:00January 26th, 2020|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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90. Picturesque World’s Fair – Details of the Golden Doorway

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 90 - DETAILS OF THE "GOLDEN DOORWAY." DETAILS OF THE "GOLDEN DOORWAY."—The magnificent entrance to the Transportation Building, known popularly as the "Golden Doorway"—though it was not golden, but green and silver—was not, architecturally considered, complete with the quintuple arches and doorway proper alone, but included, as part of the entrance effects, a system of elaborate lateral ornamentation, the details of which, on one side, are given in the [...]

By Randy|2024-11-21T10:04:01-06:00November 16th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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Louis Sullivan’s Transportation Building … in Green

Adler & Sullivan’s Transportation Building. [Image from The World’s Columbian Exposition Portfolio of Views by C. D. Arnold and H. D. Higinbotham (C. B. Woodward Co., 1893).] Finding references to the 1893 World’s Fair--especially in unexpected places--can be a delight. All the more so when images of the White City show up in the context of another personal passion. A few weeks ago, the yellow brick road led to the White City. The Paramount Theater in Aurora, Illinois, [...]

By Scott|2019-01-20T19:07:41-06:00January 20th, 2019|Categories: NEWS, THEATER|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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“World’s Fairs and the Death of Optimism”

Darran Anderson’s essay “World’s Fairs and the Death of Optimism” (citylab.com, October 3, 2018) addresses the fading luster of World’s Fairs and uses some examples from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago to illustrate his point. “World’s Fairs fell from grace,” writes Anderson. “Who could blame nostalgia towards witnessing the Crystal Palace, the head of the Statue of Liberty in a Parisian park, the extra-terrestrial Trylon and Perisphere, or the Tower of the Sun? This was bolstered by [...]

By Scott|2018-10-19T16:14:35-05:00October 20th, 2018|Categories: NEWS|Tags: , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS (pp. 5-6)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 5 THE GOLDEN DOOR.—The main portal of the Transportation Building, because of its strikingly attractive features both of design and coloring, became known as " The Golden Door," and certainly deserved the admiring title given it by the public. The Transportation Building, as a whole, was a complete departure in style and hue from the great mass of structures which gave the White City its name, and its greatest [...]

By Randy|2019-11-16T16:19:10-06:00December 9th, 2017|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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