A Cold War Sketch1
Preliminary version of paper – do not copy nor quote
dr. Rika Devos
rika.devos@ugent.be
Dept. Architecture & Urban Planning, Ghent University
(Image 1) Plan number 35/46678X, signed by Edward D. STONE (50E, 64th Street, New York,
New York), large 120 cm by 71 cm approx., pencil on paper, with a vignette by the Brussels
based entrepreneur Entreprises Blaton-Aubert s.a., not only is a technical drawing for the
backyard of the American pavilion of Expo 58, it also hints of how Cold War tensions were
part of the daily life at the building site.2 Nor is it a typical technical drawing. The plan was most
probably produced on the building site, for it was drawn loosely by hand and the fragments were
arranged in an unusual manner, showing a specific, non-representative fragment of the site,
with only minor indication of scale, measurements or materials. The drawing explains how the
back garden of the American pavilion fitted in the existing slope. The retaining wall of the back
garden defined the border with the adjacent Soviet-Russian pavilion. Three drawings provide
details on this wall: a plan which indicates the plantings and heights, a small, quickly sketched
“vue cavalière”3 and a section through the retaining wall, drawn in a larger scale and situated
prominently in the centre of the sheet. The figurines indicating the scale of the section lend a
funny, but also profoundly political tone to the drawing. Although a document with little factual
significance in the plan file of the American pavilion, because of the location addressed4 and the
caricatural nature of the figurines (Image 2) – a nineteenth century Cossack with fur hat and
mustache and an American citizen dressed casually modern, with Borsalino hat, tie, tweed jacket
and pipe – tellingly testifies of the stereotypes and the living adversaries between the USA and
USSR ideologies in that period. The organizers of Expo 58 had staged the opposition between
the two superpowers of the escalating Cold War by attributing them large, prominently sited
adjoining lots in the heart of the Foreign Section. Yet although this staging of the Cold War
constituted one of the most dominant images of Expo 58 – both visual and mental – the official
production of explicitly deriding images by one of the two superpowers was rare.5 (Image 3)
1
This paper investigates the antagonism between of the USA and USSR pavilions at
Expo 58. Based on archival research6 and close readings of contemporary publications, the essay
hypothesizes that the Cold War antagonism at Expo 58 was not so much formulated in words,
but reflected in images. These images – created by photographers, graphic artists, architects and
interior decorators – implied different scales and were published and commented in various
media. This paper seeks to demonstrate the nature and the use of the images in the diplomatic
and mass audience confrontation at Expo 58. The images in this study were produced by the
superpowers, by the organizers of Expo 58, by visitors or by the popular and architectural press
and were important elements in the communication of opposed identities, loaded with political
connotations. A second hypothesis in this essay is that modern architecture played a dominant
role in the visual representation of the USSR and USA at Expo 58. Ranging from the urban
planning of the Foreign Section, over the architectural statements in and on the pavilions, to the
use of architecture as an exhibit, this study will consider the discourses on and use of modern
architecture as an image to create parallel and even opposing, but explicitly representative realities
for the societies of both superpowers.
Modern fair architecture as a mass medium at Expo 58
Expo 58 was the first post-war universal and international exhibition and provided the
participating nations and companies with a world-wide forum to promote their post-war
identities. On its site, over 150 buildings were erected, among which 127 pavilions constructed
by the host nation and its colonies,7 43 by foreign nations8 and 31 by commercial firms. The fair
was located on the fringes of Brussels, capital of Belgium, on a 200 hectare site including the
park sites of Laecken and Osseghem. From Thursday, April 17 to Sunday, October 19 over 41.5
million visited the fair, among which 80% of all Belgians.9
Expo 58, especially its Foreign Section, might be considered as a lesson in post-war geopolitics. These were highly visual and well-controlled lessons, composed in juxtaposition by many
and aiming at a mass audience. Promotion through images not only was concerned with the
buildings which housed the exhibits, but also included the exhibitions with the planned routes
for visiting, the landscaping and creation of specific atmospheres, as well as the images and texts
created for the promotion of the participations. Individual pavilions, but also the world’s fair as a
whole, can be considered as fabrications, parallel realities, representing selected parts of the world
outside of their fenced sites, most often with the goal to explain or to entertain. In his Theory of
exhibitions Umberto Eco pointed on the specific role of (modern) architecture at world’s fairs: ‘In
an exposition, architecture proves to be message first, than utility; meaning first, then stimulus.
To conclude: In an exposition we show not the objects but the exposition itself.’10 In addition,
the diverse parallel promotions and confrontations at Expo 58 were “soft” claims of identity
and diversity. With respect to the other participants, messages through pavilions were steered
by international diplomatic courtesy. With respect to the mass audience, the promotion was
shaped mainly by what Tony Bennett has referred to as the Exhibitionary complex.11 Although well2
planned and debated environments, world’s fairs tend to present its visitors with multitude, with
unsurveyable spaces, dazzling experiences and enlighten the act of showing and education with
amusement and pleasure, turning the visiting mass into the real showpiece of the fair.12 Messages
of power at world’s fairs, Bennet claims, are not apparently intrusive but often implicit and, at
least intentionally, comprehensive.
All participants to Expo 58 were invited to acknowledge the general theme: Balance Sheet
for a more human World. Under the blanket term of modern humanism – a popular theme in the
arts and social sciences of the fifties – the world’s fair would testify of the new, technologically
and scientifically advanced world, but also, first and foremost, of a peaceful world with attention
to real human needs. Messages on national identities, progress, consumption and power were
balancing between the “recognizable stereotype” and the “enlivening surprise.” Notwithstanding
the stressing of different identities, a constancy at the fair was the commissioners’ widespread
choice to construct distinctly modern pavilions. In the post-war period, modern architecture had
become an accepted idiom worldwide, not only by avant-garde architects, but also by the political
and commercial establishment. Yet in the context of world’s fairs, this is a new situation. At Expo
58, modern architecture was used as a metaphor for the modern state which had successfully
overcome post-war reconstruction. In many cases, the architectural choices stemmed from
ongoing, politically motivated discussions on architectural representation in the homeland and
abroad. Functioning as mass media, these metaphors are communicated in images and text to the
general public through guides, leaflets and reports, which can be interpreted as the “operating
instructions” of the pavilions.
Discourses on and images of modern architecture were important elements also in the
creation of a successful identity in the pavilions of the USA and the USSR at Expo 58. For the
Cold War superpowers, but also to the many other participants and visitors of the exhibition,
this first post-war world’s fair was an opportunity to demonstrate their renewed progressiveness
and to construct or deconstruct their national stereotypes. British design critic Misha Black
observed: ‘It is this re-opening of once closed doors that makes the Brussels exhibition unique.
The war and the rapidly closing iron and bamboo curtains have created off images of countries,
encouraged amnesia and allowed bitterness to depose judgment. Here there is the opportunity
for reassessment.’13 Their architects and design teams involved in the creation of pavilions were
engaged in the ongoing national debates on official representation, albeit in different ways: the
Russian architects and engineers were employees with the Ministry of Public Works and the
American architect had recently designed the New Delhi embassy, a strategic Cold War building
in Asia. Yet at the time the pavilions were designed, modern architecture not only had found
world-wide support with the establishment, its idiom and ideals were questioned within the
discipline.14 This critical attitude vis-à-vis interwar “orthodox” modernism also found its way
to the official state discourses. Criticism, revisions or alternatives to this abstract, but common
touchstone were forwarded as demonstrations of “mature modernism” with the government and
were perceived as such. The French critic Alexandre Persitz enthusiastically reported after his
3
visit to Expo 58 on ‘la maturité architecturale de certains pays et le discernement avec lequel ils
ont su désigner des architectes de très grand talent pour les représenter.’15
In the following paragraphs, the use of images of modern architecture in the promotion
of post-war Soviet-Russia and of the United States will be analyzed on five interacting
levels, featuring various actors and scales: (1) the use of the lot and the visual relation to the
surrounding pavilions; (2) the representation of the exterior of the pavilion and the official
discourse developed on its representational or monumental aspects; (3) the consistency of the
design with respect to interior and exterior and the official report on internal opinions and
differences; (4) the representation of modern architecture as an exhibit in the pavilion and (5)
less controlled by the commissioners, the reactions on the pavilion by press and public.
Freedom and unambiguous political architecture in the USA representation
(Image 4) The USA pavilion at Expo 58 was embedded in a new architectural policy on
the foreign representation of the USA. ‘Unambiguous political architecture’16 had become
the concern of the State Department’s Foreign Buildings Office (FBO) since 1954 and was
deemed an outstanding tool to express “Americanness,” interpreted as a character of ‘assurance,
importance, tact and vitality.’17 Modern American architecture was considered an exquisite
silent ambassador for the States’ democratic ideals. The State Department invited Edward D.
Stone (1902-1978) to design the American pavilion. Choosing Stone meant choosing a “more
than modern” architecture, answering a ‘need for richness, exuberance, and pure, unadulterated
freshness,’ 18 but also an insurance to realize a project which was likely to meet positive responses
in the homeland.19 Stone designed an classical, geometrically simple volume which was impressive
through its sheer size: a drum with a diameter of 116 m, 26 m high and one of the largest
constructions on site. The volume comprised two storeys, of which the ground floor was inserted
in a general pedestal, carrying two other smaller drums: the American Theatre (diameter 53 m, 15
m high, 1150 seats) and the Circarama (diameter 20 m, height 6 m).20 Stone had concentrated the
American building into one dense ensemble at the far side of the lot. Consequently, Stone created
not only an impressive front facing the Square of Nations, but by designing the terrain as a
frontcourt to the pavilion, he orientated the view from the entire square and from the Passerelle –
one of the most prominent walkways on site – following the axis of the USA pavilion. Only the
presence of flags of American states at the side of the Passerelle were clear but subtle hints of
the fact that this square was not a “neutral” terrain. The gesture had not missed its effect: because
of the size of the front façade and because of openness of the square, most photographs of
the American pavilion, including the one for the cover of the official guide, were taken from the
opposite side of the Square of Nations.
“Modern humanism,” the theme forwarded by the Belgian organizers of the fair, was a
commonly used term to describe FBO’s intentions in architecture. Yet while the organizers of
the fair conceived of humanism as a balance between the benefits of modernity and the values
of tradition represented in a unifying modern imagery, FBO defined humanism as an integration
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of business with the arts and sciences, for which the modern architecture of the International
Style was considered an unfit idiom. The new architectural policy favored a contemporary
architecture positioned ‘against anonymity, uniformity, and all the things that go to make up
modernism,’21 but capable of ‘absorbing decorative traditions with late-modern functionalism.’22
Stone’s contemporary style was deemed representative for the FBO policy and was labeled
as modern, but above all as neo-classical, ‘d’une symétrie rarement en défaut et d’un souci de
monumentalisme nettement inspiré par un choix éclectique des composantes.’23
(Image 5) The interior of the pavilions and its exhibition had to deliver proof of the
freedom, richness and relaxed atmosphere of American society. American commissioner general
Howard Cullman announced the pavilion as ‘an “exciting, dramatic but not extravagant” example
of architecture designed to house … the creative impulse of American life in behalf of world
peace.’24 Official text by the organizers spoke of ‘une sensation de repos. Cette initiative, prise par
un pays connu précisément pour le rythme effréné de sa vie économique et de la vie quotidienne
de chaque citoyen, ne manque pas de séduction.’25 Although the general interior concept was
designed by Stone, his exhibition design was not accepted. Moreover, and this was presented as
a sign of the vitality and diversity of American modern architecture, the final installations and
the contemporary architecture on show differed largely from Stone’s idiom. (Image 6) The
architecture exhibits comprised large photographs and models, such as of the Lever House, St.
Louis Airport, the Monsanto house, fragments of Manhattan,26 as well as modern buildings for
private and public use. Here, the work of famous architects active in America was illustrated with
projects by Gropius, Breuer, Neutra, Mies van der Rohe, Saarinen, Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright,
Rudolph, Johnson, Gruen, Skidmore, Owings & Merill, etcetera. (Image 7) Early 1957, Cullman
hired designers Peter G. Harnden27 and Bernard Rudofsky28 for the development, design and
supervision of the exhibition displays. The designers warned the exhibition commission29 for the
preconceptions of the European visitors, to whom, ‘another repetition of production statistics
could be counted on to arouse boredom, perhaps irritation, certainly envy.’30 The designers
advanced that new, more subtle strategies were to be adopted. Eventually, various themes were
developed to display “the American way of life” and shaped by the late capitalist “soft sell”
methods Cullman had already announced in January 1957.31 This strategy was in line with
Rudofsky’s practice to question stereotypes and enabled him to engage less familiar, but highly
palpable everyday American objects in the representation of the nation through installations
like Islands of Living, Streetscape or The Face of America.32 Less than providing surveyable, scientific
information, the exhibition would speak of the “American spirit of democracy and freedom,”
intensively debated, demonstratively uncensored and not devoid of self-criticism and irony and
hence, following the discourse of the designers, illustrative to the American freedom of speech.
(Image 8) Although the praising reactions of the European visitors and press proved
the success of the designers’ approach, the easy-going atmosphere of the pavilion and the
apparently random chosen exhibits stirred many American visitors. The lack of “high-quality”
objects, illustrative of American industrial superiority, became an issue in the Congress where,
5
already from the start of the project, the American participation to Expo 58 and its considerable
sponsoring had been questioned on several occasions.33 Opposition in the homeland to this
“Cold War defeat” got tough and President Eisenhower sent George V. Allen, head of the
Unites States Information Agency (USIA), to report on the exhibition. By the end of June, Allen
wrote to the president: ‘On balance, my reaction was favourable,’ more particularly, the soft-sell
approach proved to be successful, because ‘Europeans are particularly impressed by the absence
of heavy-handed propaganda and the fact that the United States, which they know to be powerful
industrially and economically, had not attempted to overshadow the Fair with a show of industrial
might. The general air of our exhibit is one of friendliness, animation, and humanism.’34 Allen’s
report was published in the American newspapers.
Harnden’s and Rudofsky’s fragmentary, tactile and above all informal approach to the
exhibition was adopted to meet with the presumptions of the public as a counterweight to
the prevailing image of USA propaganda. This new image was one of classic grandeur and
casual entertainment at once. The pavilion’s architecture was lauded in the foreign press as a
demonstration of power and progressiveness, of ‘la maturité esthétique de leur architecture
dans un esprit progressiste et évolutif.’35 Yet the ‘character of the American pavilion is that of a
pleasure dome rather than of an exhibition hall’36 – as Rudofsky himself had qualified his design.
Given the atmosphere of Cold War rivalries, this approach was interpreted as a public relations
defeat in the homeland. In particular the internal discussions, jokes, satire and self-criticism,
presented as proofs of the existence of free speech, were experienced generally as symptoms of
weakness and of a lack of unity. On the other hand, even the lively homeland reception history
and the non-stop production of fragmentary images can be read as inherent illustrations of a US
promoted culture of internal debate and freedom of speech.
Industrial progress and absent architecture in the USSR representation
(Image 9) The organizers of Expo 58 had attributed the USSR a large lot bordering on the
central Square of Nations, right next to the USA. According to the USSR commissioners, this
juxtaposition created a situation of possible competition between ‘the comparative results of
socialist and capitalist systems.’ To the Soviet commissioners also, this was the first post-war
world’s fair pavilion. A national competition was organized for the pavilion, for which the
competition brief explicitly asked for a massive, monumental volume. The pavilion had to be
realized as a single, glazed and geometrically simple rectangular volume, which was forwarded as
a fit reflection of the nation’s ‘power and clarity of ideology.’ Moreover, the edifice’s construction
had to be ‘contemporary and progressive, for rapid erection and disassembly, with return for reerection in Moscow being envisaged.’37 The winning project was designed by the young architects
Alexander Boretskii, Iurii Abramov, Victor Dubov and Anatole Polianskii, with Iuli Ratskevich
and Xeni Vasil’eva as engineers. All were employees of the Ministry of Civil Construction.38
150 metres long, 72 metres wide and 35 metres high at the side of the Square of Nations, the
exhibition hall was a simple rectangular volume with a classical, three-part façade comprising a
6
closed basis, a serrated, glazed middle and an open top. Contrary to Stone, the Russian architects
opted to make full use of their 2.5 hectares lot and levelled out the terrain with an all-comprising
pedestal on which the exhibition hall, a cinema and open air exhibition were arranged. This
pedestal served as a podium towards the square: a stage for the exhibition hall, but also for the
many performances by Russian dancers and sportsmen.
The pavilion not only was the first post-war representation on a world forum, it also was
the first official commission for an international project following the new party directives on
architecture. After the sudden death of Stalin in March 1953 and the subsequent announcement
of the so-called “Thaw,” Soviet authorities urged to demonstrate a post-war, powerful, renewed
and advanced Soviet-Union. While the exhibition had to demonstrate the recent successes of the
Soviet-Union in the social, artistic, economic and scientific fields, the building would illustrate
the new Soviet doctrine on architecture forwarded by Stalin’s successor, Nikita Sergeevich
Khruchshev. Khrushchev’s opposition to Stalin’s cultural politics had already been revealed
shortly before the announcement of the Soviet participation to Expo 58. In December 1954,
the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers had called for the All-Union Conference of
Builders, Architects and Workers in the Building and Building Material and Design Organizations to redirect
building practice in the entire Soviet Union.39 At this congress, Khrushchev denounced the
“embellishment” of buildings as promoted by the Stalin regime. He also insisted on rational and
technological improvements, far-going standardization and on a leading role for the building
industries. People’s living standard needed to be raised drastically and the mass construction of
housing was top priority. As a result, in 1955 the Academy of Architecture was replaced by the
Academy of Construction and Architecture. Hence, in tune with the new policy, the pavilion’s
competition brief stressed constructional logic and economy, providing an ‘architectural image
(which) reflects the greatness and powerful capacity of the Soviet Union and demonstrates the
capacities of the Soviet construction industry.’40
(Image 10) The interior of the exhibition hall was an symmetrical space, organized along
its main axis and dominated by a statue of Lenin flanked by the Sputniks, rockets and shiny
models of aircrafts. According to the official folder, the exhibition illustrated that ‘de contrée
agraire et arriérée qu’elle était il y a 40 ans, l’Union Soviétique s’est transformée en un grande
puissance industrielle et kolkhozienne, à la science avancée, aux puissantes outillages, au niveau
élevé de civilisation.’41 In this reflection of the post-war USSR, architecture was not presented
as an autonomous discipline. Nevertheless, a prominent place was reserved for “Architectural
monuments,” while two other sections illustrated the “Building Sites” and “Reconstruction of
Moscow.” These sections illustrated in photographs, charts and models the Moscow metro and
the new Moscow city quarters following the Khrushchev edicts. Additionally, the new typebuildings were demonstrated, together with the industrialized building industry and urbanism
projects. (Image 11) Another folder declared: ‘Between 1951 and 1955 the country annually
completed about 30.5 million sq. metres of new housing. … This year’s housing programme is
more ambitions: eight million people will move into new flats in towns and workers settlements
7
and nearly 800.000 houses will be built in the countryside. In 10 to 12 years the housing problem
in the USSR will be solved.’42 Moreover, specific buildings like the Lomonossov university in
Moscow (National Education section) or the Lenin stadium (Leisure and Sports section) were
central exhibits in specific sections. These buildings also featured prominently in the guides
and folders of the pavilion as proof of the nation’s modernization and of the benefits these
architectural projects have brought to the people.
(Image 12) Although they were only rarely mentioned in the official text, the pavilion’s
interior was dominated by four murals on architectural projects – both of existing, specific
buildings as of unidentified, ideologically motivated construction projects. Most prominent
was Andrei Goncharov bird’s eye view on new Moscow, just behind the Lenin statue and
covering the whole internal back façade of the exhibition hall. In his socialist realist style,
Goncharov displayed the colourful and detailed Kremlin in the foreground, together with
the silhouette of the Lomonossov university (one of Stalin’s post-war “Tall Buildings”), but
also with Khrushchev’s new city quarters.43 The entrance area, which featured an ideological
introduction to the benefits of communism, was flanked by three large murals by Vladimir
Serov and Aleksandr Deineka.44 The Deineka murals showed the completion of the university
building (“Za mir”), but also ongoing construction works, prominently featuring modern building
materials (prefabricated concrete slabs and stairs on cranes, steel frames). (Image 13) Next to
the construction mural, an explicit parallel was made between the physical and the ideological
construction of the nation using a Lenin quote: ‘…nous sommes fiers du bonheur qui nous est
échu de commencer l’édification de l’état soviétique, d’ouvrir ainsi une ère nouvelle dans l’histoire
mondiale.’
To the Soviet commissioners and architects, the apparent opposition between the
“modern” building and its “socialist realist” exhibition was inexistent. The exterior of the
building was only a new expression of socialist realism. Western observers did interpret the
idioms of the interior and exterior of the pavilion as in conflict. The interior was considered
outdated and almost aggressive, but fact that the pavilion had a modern outlook and construction
logic was welcomed by western critics. The American Architectural Record concluded: ‘they
are … they are no longer in a world of their own.’45Adopting western modernist standards
to the pavilion, the pavilion was recognized as a statement, a turn to western modernism –
as had done many before, wrongfully, on the occasion of Khrushchev’s 1954 speech. Yet
British and American critics also judged the modern architecture of the pavilion as crude and
unsophisticated and interpreted this a sign of the backwardness of the Soviet-Russian industry:
the exhibition hall was nothing but ‘massive technological greenhouse’46 which ‘emulates a kind
of western modernism that it doesn’t understand.’47 In the condemning words of the British
Architect’s Journal: ‘The engineering detail itself seems to have been conceived with little regard
for the visual effect, …. A building like this – which is, after all, typical of what was being done
in England in the ‘twenties’ – makes one realize what a long way we have in fact travelled in the
direction of inter-professional understanding.’48
A slip of the drawing pen
The opposition in the visual communication between the USA and the USSR was largely
implicit – they simply used opposed visual languages and motivations – yet due to the everyday
antagonism in the ongoing Cold War, it might be assumed that most visitors of Expo 58 made
direct comparisons between these pavilions.49 Although part of an ongoing visual rhetoric on
their national identities or ideologies,50 both pavilions were developed independently from each
other. Also, the pavilions demonstrated explicit innovations in the light of their own previous
representations. While verbal criticism in the press of both camps was common, depreciation
through images or even any kind of visual representation of the “other” were rare. Stone’s sketch
of the retaining wall was made “for internal use only” and may be considered as a slip of the pen,
albeit a telling one. Unrestricted by the laws of international diplomacy, this drawing spoke freely
in lively clichés. Although it should not be taken too seriously, the sketch testifies of the pervasive
oppositional thinking. Most importantly, today, the sketch serves as an eye-opener to historians.
The figurines in Stone’s sketch appear to be widely supported western stereotypes in the
late fifties and even today, the drawing needs no captions. The American figure was, of course,
in tune with the concepts of the pavilion and the ongoing promotion of the easy way of living,
wealth and progressiveness in the United States. As was the case in the American propaganda,
the American is presented as superior to the Soviet, he is more modern and, thanks to the terrain,
literally looks down on his neighbor. The American was a modern man, in a relaxed manner –
smoking, casually dressed – recognizable to European viewers. It is the kind of man one might
meet on the street. The Russian is a stranger. The Cossack is un-modern, old-fashioned, but also
a warrior and, hence, a potential threat and likely to show aggressive behavior, not adapted to
the festive environment of the fair. The visions on the communist and capitalist Images of Man
reflected by this simple drawing appeal to the core of the visual antagonism on the Square of
Nations, which was never expressed that clearly officially. The superpowers provided the visitors
with a juxtaposition, with implicitly opposing images, but the comparison had to be made by the
individual visitor himself – or by the press. Here, modern architecture was the medium to express
conflicting visions of contemporary man – of modern humanism. In the word of historian
Susan Reid: ‘Under the slogans “a new humanism” and “man and progress,” the principles of
peaceful coexistence and peaceful competition between the “two camps” in economics, culture,
science, and technology were fought out over competing definitions of the “modern.”’51 The
reception of the modern architecture of both pavilions by the western architectural press, for
instance, spoke of the same stereotypes as Stone’s sketch.
The parallels between the construction of modern architecture and the construction of
the modern state were though and pervasive. The positions taken vis-à-vis interwar modernism
– expressions of ‘mature modernism’ – were used to create oppositional stances. The massive
volumes of both pavilions and their dominant presence at the Square of Nations not only
called for the visitors’ attention, it also invited for open comparison. With respect to the
architectural stylistic rhetoric: communist post-war socialist realism versus capitalist neo-classical
9
modernism. With respect to the interiors of the pavilions and the visitors’ preferred route:
the static panopticon with hierarchically composed views of Russian know-how and industry
versus the free experience of fragmentary and dispersed displays of Americanness and culture.
Notwithstanding its low-profile expression, Stone’s retaining wall between the USA and USSR
lots at Expo 58 functioned as a symbolic iron curtain between the Western and the Eastern
blocks.
(Endnotes)
1
This sketch was found during the research for my doctoral thesis, published as Rika Devos, Modern at Expo
58. Discussions on post-war architectural representation (Ph.D. thesis, Ghent: Faculteit Ingenieurswetenschappen, 2008).
2
File on the American pavilion: Brussels, State Archives, Fund Expo 58, n. 3.56.05.
3
The sketch is made from an unusual angle: from the Soviet side, a view which was, because of the
orientation of the pavilion, but also following the representation logic of the Cold War, not part of the official
imagery of the American pavilion. Moreover, a “vue cavalière,” used to show representative views, is an atypical
drawing for technical plans.
4
The retaining wall actually defines the border between the USA pavilion and the Hungarian pavilion. The
pavilions of the Hungary and Czechoslovakia were situated across the back entrance of the USSR pavilion and part
of the “communist area” in the Foreign Section.
5
For more details on the representation of the Cold War and Second World War were explained in my
presentation For a more human World: post-war modern architecture and the representation of past and present conflict at Expo 58
(Leeds, CATH, July 2006). Research on the representation of war on Expo 58 is still in progress.
6
For the analysis of the USA pavilion: (1) primary sources: Brussels, State Archives, Fund Expo 58, n.
3.56.05, 4.10.01/P30 and 4.11.00/A21, publications by the commissioners (leaflets, folders and catalogue) and the
organizers (memorials and guide) and contemporary publications in architectural magazines and (2) secondary
sources: Ron Robin, Enclaves of America. The Rhetoric of American political architecture abroad, 1900-1960 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1992); Robert W. Rydell, World of Fairs. The Century-of-Progress Expositions (Chicago/
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993); Robert H. Haddow, Pavilions of Plenty. Exhibiting American Culture
Abroad in the 1950s (Washington/London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997); Jane C. Loeffler, The Architecture of
Diplomacy. Building America’s embassies (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998); Felicity D. Scott, “Encounters
with the Face of America,” in Architecture and the Sciences. Exchanging metaphors, eds. Antoine Picon and Alessandra Ponte
(New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003), 256-291 and Felicity D. Scott, “An eye on Modern Architecture,”
in Monika Platzer and others, Lessons from Bernard Rudofsky. Life as a Voyage (Basel/Boston/Berlin: Birkhäuser,
2007), 200-205. For the analysis of the USSR pavilion: (1) primary sources: Brussels, State Archives, Fund Expo 58,
n.3.56.32 and 4.10.01/P40, publications by the commissioners (leaflets, folders and catalogue) and the organizers
(memorials and guide) and contemporary publications in architectural magazines and (2) secondary sources: Iurri
Gerchuk, “The Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR (1954-64)” in Style and Socialism.
Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe, eds. Susan E. Reid and David Crowley (Oxford: Berg, 2000)
or Catherine Cooke (with Susan E. Reid), “Modernity and Realism. Architectural relations in the Cold War” and
Susan E. Reid, “Toward a new (socialist) realism. The re-engagement with western modernism in the Khrushchev
Thaw” both in Russian art and the west. A century of dialogue in painting, architecture, and the decorative arts, eds. Rosalind
Blakesley and Susan E. Reid (Dekalb: Nothern Illinois University Press, 2007).
7
The Congo and mandatory areas Ruanda and Urundi were exhibited in a separate Colonial Section.
8
In the Foreign Section 43 nations were represented in 39 pavilions. Libanon, Saudi-Arabia, Iraq, Jordania
and the Republic of the Arabian Union (with the provinces of Egypt and Syria) had built a joint pavilion.
9
See for instance: Guillaume and Eliane Jacquemyns, L’Exposition de 1958. Son succès auprès des Belges. Opinions
et voeux des visiteurs (Brussels: Insoc 1 and 2, 1959).
10
Umberto Eco, “A Theory of Expositions,” Faith in Fakes. Travels in Hyperreality (London: Vintage, 1998), 299.
11
Tony Bennett, “The Exhibitionary complex,” in Representing the nation: a reader. Histories, heritage and museums,
eds. David Boswell and Jessica Evans (London/New York: Routledge, 1999), 332-361.
12
World’s fairs have been identified as mass media since the 1960ies, see for instance: Renato De Fusco,
Architettura come mass medium, note per una semiologia architettonica (Bari: Dedalo, 1967), but also Eco, “A Theory of
Expositions,” Pieter Van Wesemael, Architecture of Instruction and Delight. A socio-historical analysis of World Exhibitions as
a didactic phenomenon (1798-1851-1970) (Amsterdam: 010 Publishers, 2001) or Devos, Modern at Expo 58.
10
13
Misha Black, “A Display of Character,” Progress (Summer 1958): 233.
14
On the discussions and practices in modern architecture during the fifties see for instance: Sarah Williams
Goldhagen and Réjean Legault, eds., Anxious Modernisms. Experimentation in postwar architectural culture (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2000).
15
Alexandre Persitz, “Souvenirs de l’Exposition de Bruxelles 1958. Noirs et Blancs,” L’Architecture
d’Aujourd’hui 81 (December-January 1959): 95.
16
Robin, Enclaves of America, 140.
17
“USA abroad,” Architectural Forum (December 1957): 114.
18
“More than modern,” Time Magazine (31 March 1958).
19
The early responses to the Stone’s New Delhi embassy were highly positive both in architects’ circles and
with the general public. In the second half of the fifties, Stone was hyped in every major architectural magazine and
in the general press (journals and television).
20
The pedestal and the American Theatre are still on site. See: Rika Devos, The American pavilion of Expo 58,
http://www.c20society.org.uk/docs/building/brussels_expo.html.
21
“Citizens and architects,” Architectural Forum 110 (January 1959): 90.
22
“Architecture to represent America abroad,” Architectural Record (May 1955): 188.
23
Alexandre Persitz, “Le néo-classicisme américain,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 77 (April 1958): 46.
24
Joanne Price, “Round pavilion, largest of its kind. U.S. plans Brussels Fair Hall,” New York Herald Tribune,
28 January 1957.
25
Maurice Lambilliotte, les participations étrangères et belges. Vol. 3 of Exposition de Bruxelles 1958. Mémorial. (Brussels:
Commissariat général du Gouvernement près l’Exposition universelle et internationale de Bruxelles 1958, 1961), 34.
26
In the installation called Cityscape (Rudofsky?), photographs of skyscrapers were mounted on curved walls,
to evoke the dazzling experience of looking upward in Manhattan. See image 6.
27
Peter Graham Harnden had worked already as designer and producer for USIA (United States Information
Agency) and realized thirty-five US exhibitions in national and international trade fairs.
28
On the role of Bernard Rudofsky, who had already designed several exhibitions at MoMa, New York, see
also: Felicity D. Scott, “An eye on Modern Architecture,” in Monika Platzer and others, Lessons from Bernard Rudofsky.
Life as a Voyage (Basel/Boston/Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2007), 200-205. The installations, according to Scott, ‘would prove
to be the most controversial of his career.’
29
The Cambridge Study Group was composed of Cullman, his assistant James Plaut, Harnden, members of the
staff and specialist from MIT, including Max F. Millikan, Ithiel de Sola Pool and Gyorgy Kepes. The group met on
27-28 April 1957 at MIT.
30
“Brussels ’58, the United States speaks to the world. Progress Report,’ Interiors (September 1957): 135.
31
‘We don’t intend to use the hard sell; we don’t think we have to – not in selling America.’ Cullman quoted
in “Russia to spend 50 Million at Fair,” (unknown American newspaper), February 5 1957. Part of the press clippings
on the pavilion in the State Archives, Fund Expo 58, n. 3.56.06.
32
Rudofsky motivated his deliberately unorthodox choice for exhibits in a similar way: ‘we did not try to sell
ourselves.’ Scott, Scott, “An eye on Modern Architecture,” 203.
33
On the funding of the pavilion and the debates about the relation vis-à-vis the USSR pavilion, see Johanna
Kint, “We look at them, they look at us: USA versus USSR,” Expo 58 als belichaming van het humanistisch modernisme
(Rotterdam: Uitgeverij 010, 2001), 243-301.
34
Text of the report to the president by George V. Allen, director of the United States Information agency. For release in
Sunday papers, June 29, 1958. Brussels, State Archives, Fund Expo 58, n. 3.56.05/1.
35
Persitz, “Le néo-classicisme américain,” 46.
36
“Brussels ’58, the United States speaks to the world. Progress Report,’ Interiors (September 1957): 139.
37
Cooke, “Modernity and Realism”, 188. Extracts from the competition brief. (note 37).
38
All members studied architecture in the post-war period. No further biographic information was found.
39
The conference was held in the Kremlin, from 30 November to 7 December 1954.
40
Cooke, “Modernity and Realism,” 188.
41
Pavillon de l’U.R.S.S. Guide. Exhibition folder of the USSR pavilion [1958?].
42
This is how we live. Exhibition folder of the USSR pavilion [1958?].
43
Khrushchev’s Novye Cheremushki were still under construction and were depicted as abstract volumes
without façades. See image 12.
44
On the right: Aleksandr Deineka: “For Peace” (“Za Mir”), a parade in front of Rudnev’s Lomonossov
university building. On the left wall, two murals were shown: Lenin’s Address to the Second All Russian Congress of
Soviets by Vladimir Serov (1957-’58) and a larger (by Deineka?) mural of a building site of an urban expansion area,
see image 13. Remarkably: the architect and many of the construction workers are women.
45
“Architecture at Brussels: festival of structure,” Architectural Record 123, no. 6 (June 1958): 163.
11
46
Ogden Tanner, “The best at Brussels,” Architectural Forum 108, no. 6 (1958): 79.
47
This vision is maintained in later evaluations as well, for example by Otakar Máčel, “Post-war Modern
Architecture in the Former Eastern Bloc,’ in Back from Utopia. The Challenge of the Modern Movement, eds. HubertJan Henket and Hilde Heynen (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002), 112: the USSR and Czech pavilion showed a
‘determination to catch up with the West.’ Yet convincing arguments by Catherine Cooke point at a specific selfcentred reform, based on Soviet knowledge (modernist architecture and developing industries) and a lasting urge
to build “national in style, socialist in content” in the new Khrushchev approach, which is not a radical break with
ongoing tendencies in Soviet building and certainly not an intended turn to the west.
48
“Soviet Union,” Architect’s Journal 127, no. 3300 (29 May 1958): 828.
49
92,4% of the fairgoers visited the USSR pavilion, 92,6% the USA – the highest rates on site.
50
See for instance the recent exhibition and catalogue: Jane Pavitt and David Crowley, eds., Cold War Modern
(London: V&A Publishing, 2008).
51
Reid, “Toward a new (socialist) realism,” 230.
Image 1: USA pavilion, plan 35/46678X. Brussels, State Archives, Fund Expo 58, n. 3.56.05.
Image 2: USA pavilion, fragment of plan 35/46678X.
Brussels, State Archives, Fund Expo 58, n. 3.56.05.
Image 3: Square of Nations. Copyright Egicarte. Ghent:
Coll. Dept. of Architecture & Urban Planning.
12
Image 4: Guide to the USA pavilion This is America, cover. Image 6: Presentation of Manhattan, USA pavilion.
1958. Images de l’Exposition universelle de Bruxelles (Brussels:
Charles Dessart, 1958).
Image 5: USA pavilion. Photo Willems. Ghent: Coll.
Dept. of Architecture & Urban Planning.
Image 7: Shopping Street, USA pavilion. Photo Lulsens.
Ghent: Arty coll., Dept. of Architecture & Urban Planning.
Image 8: The Face of America, USA pavilion.
Guide: This is America.
Image 10: USSR pavilion. Photo Lulsens. Ghent: Arty
coll., Dept. of Architecture & Urban Planning.
13
Image 11: USSR pavilion. Representation of the housing
problem. Fragment of a folder (without title).
Image 12: Mural on new Moscow by A. Goncharov,
USSR pavilion. Photo Lulsens. Ghent: Arty coll., Dept.
of Architecture & Urban Planning.
Image 9: Leaflet of the USSR pavilion, Pavillon de
l’U.R.S.S. Guide, cover.
Image 13: Mural on construction by A. Deineka (?),
USSR pavilion. Photo Lulsens. Ghent: Arty coll., Dept.
of Architecture & Urban Planning.
14