Century 21 Exposition

 

The Century 21 Exposition (also known as the Seattle World's Fair) was a World's Fair held in Seattle, Washington in 1962.^[1] The fair was open April 21, 1962 to October 21, 1962.^[2]

The fair was planned to leave behind a fairground and numerous public buildings and public works; some credit it with revitalizing Seattle's economic and cultural life (see History of Seattle since 1940).^[3] Unlike some World's Fairs, it ran a profit.^[4]

The fair saw the construction of the Space Needle and Alweg monorail, as well as several sports venues and performing arts buildings (most of which have either been replaced or heavily remodeled since that time). The site (slightly expanded since the fair) is now called Seattle Center; the United States Science Pavilion is now the Pacific Science Center. Another notable building in Seattle Center, the Experience Music Project, was deliberately designed to fit in with the fairground atmosphere, but was actually built nearly 40 years later.

Nearly ten million people attended the fair.^[4]

The fair and the city were the setting of the Elvis Presley movie It Happened at the World's Fair (1963) with a young Kurt Russell making his first screen appearance.

Cold War and Space Race context

The fair was originally conceived in 1955 for the 50th anniversary of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, but it proved impossible to make it happen in time for that date. With the Space Race under way, and Boeing having "put Seattle on the map"^[5] as "an aerospace city",^[6] a major theme of the fair was to show that "the United States was not really 'behind' the Soviet Union in the realms of science and space." As a result, the themes of space, science, and the future completely trumped the earlier conception of a "Festival of the [American] West."^[5]

Project manager Ewen Dingwall went to Moscow to request Soviet participation, but was turned down. The Baltic states (then part of the Soviet Union) were not invited, nor was the People's Republic of China, North Vietnam, or North Korea. ^[7]

As it happened, the Cold War affected the fair in another way, as well. President John F. Kennedy was supposed to attend the closing ceremony of the fair on October 21, 1962. He bowed out, pleading a "heavy cold"; it later became public that he was dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis.^[8]

The overall picture of the future presented by the fair was one of technologically-based optimism and lack of dramatic social change, one rooted in the 1950s rather than in the cultural tides that emerged in the 1960s. Affluence, automation, consumerism and American power would grow (and social equity would simply take care of itself on a rising tide of abundance); women would still be confined largely to the domestic realm; the human race would master nature through technology rather than view it in terms of ecology.^[5] In contrast, twelve years later, even in far more conservative Spokane, Washington, Expo '74 took environmentalism as its central theme.^[9]

In June 1960, the International Bureau of Expositions certified Century 21 as a world's fair.^[7]

Buildings and grounds

Once the fair idea was conceived, several sites were considered. Among them were Duwamish Head in West Seattle, Fort Lawton (now Discovery Park) in the Magnolia neighborhood, First Hill (even closer to downtown, but far more densely developed) or, outside of the city proper, Midway or the Army Depot in Auburn (both south of the city) or the south shore of Lake Sammamish (east of the city).^[7]

The actual site of the Century 21 Exposition was originally chosen with a civic center in mind; the idea of using it for the world's fair came later and brought in federal money for the United States Science Pavilion (now Pacific Science Center) and state money for the Washington State Coliseum (later Seattle Center Coliseum, rebuilt 1993 as the KeyArena).^{[2][10][11][12]} Some of the land had been donated to the city by James Osborne in 1881 and by David and Louisa Denny in 1889.^[13]

As early as the 1909 Bogue plan, this part of Lower Queen Anne had been considered as a civic center; the Civic Auditorium (later the Opera House, now McCaw Hall), the ice arena (later Mercer Arena), and the armory (the Food Circus during the fair, later Center House) had been placed there based on that plan;^[11] also on the site was High School Memorial Stadium, built 1946 on the site of the former Civic Field.^[14] Despite the plan to build for the long term for a civic center, more than half of the fair structures were torn down after the fair ended.^[2]

Paul Thiry was the fair's chief architect; he also designed the Coliseum building. Among the other architects of the fair, Minoru Yamasaki received one of his first major commissions to build the U.S. Science Pavilion.^[15]

The grounds of the fair were divided into:

• World of Science
• World of Century 21 (also known as World of Tomorrow^[10])
• World of Commerce and Industry
• World of Art
• World of Entertainment
• Show Street
• Gayway
• Boulevards of the World
• Exhibit Fair
• Food and Favors
• Food Circus

Source: ^[16]

World of Science

The World of Science centered on the United States Science Exhibit; it also included a NASA Exhibit.^[18] These exhibits were the federal government's major contribution to the fair.^[6][11]

The United States Science Exhibit began with Charles Eames 10-minute short film "The House of Science", followed by an exhibit on the development of science, ranging from mathematics and astronomy to atomic science and genetics. The Spacearium held up to 750 people at a time for a simulated voyage through the Solar System and then through, and beyond, the Milky Way Galaxy. Further exhibits presented the scientific method and the "horizons of science." This last looked at "Science and the individual," "Control of man's physical surroundings," "Science and the problem of world population," and "Man's concept of his place in an increasingly technological world."^[18]

The NASA exhibit included models and mockups of various satellites, as well as the Project Mercury capsule that had carried Alan Shepard into space.^[18]

Seattle-born Minoru Yamasaki, who designed the Federal Science Pavilion, would later design New York's World Trade Center.^[17]

World of Century 21

The Washington State Coliseum, financed by Washington State, was Thiry's own architectural contribution to the fairgrounds. His own original conception was to place the entire fair under a single giant air-conditioned tent-like structure, "a city of its own," but there neither budget nor the tight agreement on concept to realize that vision. In the end, he got exactly enough of a budget to design and build a four hundred foot square building suitable to hold a variety of exhibition spaces and equally suitable for later conversion to a sports arena and convention facility.^[11]

During the festival, the building hosted several exhibits. Nearly half of its surface area was occupied by the state's own circular exhibit "Century 21—The Threshold and the Threat," also known as the "World of Tomorrow" exhibit," a "21-minute tour of the future." The building also housed exhibits by France, Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), General Motors (GM), the American Library Association (ALA), and RCA, as well as a Washington State tourist center.^[19]

In "The Threshold and the Threat," visitors rode a "Bubbleator" into the "world of tomorrow." Music "from another world" and a shifting patter of lights accompanied them on a 40-second upward journey to a starry space bathed in golden light. Then they were faced briefly with an image of a desperate family in a fallout shelter, which vanished and was replaced by a series of images reflecting the sweep of history, starting with the Acropolis end ending with an image of Marilyn Monroe (but, again, including a mushroom cloud).^[19]

Next, visitors were beckoned into a cluster of cubes containing a model of a "city of the future," (which a few landmarks clearly indicated as Seattle) and its suburban and rural surroundings, seen first by day and later by night. The next cluster of cubes zoomed in on a vision of a high-tech future home in a sylvan setting (and a commuter gyrocopter; a series of projections contrasted this "best of the future" to "the worst of the present" (over-uniform suburbs, a dreary urban housing project).^[19]

The exhibit continued with a vision of future transportation (centered on a monorail and high-speed "air cars" on an electrically controlled highway), an "office of the future," a climate controlled "farm factory" and an automated offshore kelp- and plankton-harvesting farm, a vision of the schools of the future with "electronic storehouses of knowledge," and a vision of the many recreations that technology will free humans to pursue.^[19]

Finally, the tour ended with a symbolic sculptural tree and the reappearance of the family in the fallout shelter and the sound of a ticking clock, then a brief silence, then an extract from President Kennedy's Inaugural Address, followed by a further "symphony of music and color."^[19]

Under the same roof, the ALA exhibited a "library of the future" (centered on a Univac computer); GM exhibited its vision for highways and vehicles of the future (the latter including the Firebird III; Pan Am exhibited a giant globe that emphasized the notion that we have come to be able to think of distances between major world cities in hours and minutes; RCA (which produced "The Threshold and the Threat") exhibited television, radio, and stereo technology, as well as its involvement in space technology; the government of France had an exhibit with its own take on technological progress; and a Washington State tourist center provided information for fairgoers wishing to tour the state.^[20]

World of Commerce and Industry

The World of Commerce and Industry was divided into domestic and foreign areas.^[21] The former shared with the World of Science the area south of American Way (the continuation of Thomas Street through the grounds) and included the Space Needle and what is now the Broad Street Green and Mural Amphitheater;^[13] the Hall of Industry and some smaller buildings were immediately north of American Way.^[22] The latter included 15 governmental exhibitors and surrounded the World of Tomorrow and extended to the north edge of the fair.^[23]

Among the features of Domestic Commerce and Industry, the massive Interiors, Fashion and Commerce Building spread for 500 feet, nearly the entire Broad Street side of the grounds, with exhibits ranging from 32 separate furniture companies to the Encyclopædia Britannica^[24] Vogue produced four fashion shows daily alongside a perfumed pool.^[7] The Ford Motor Company presented a simulated space flight; the Electric Power Pavilion included a 40-foot-high fountain made to look like a hydroelectric dam, with the entrance to the pavilion through a tunnel in the "dam"; the Forest Products Pavilion was surrounded by a grove of trees of various species, and included an all-wood theater; there were several religious pavilions; and Standard Oil of California celebrated, among other things, the fact that the world's first service station opened in Seattle in 1907.^[24] The fair's Bell Telephone exhibit was featured in a short film called "Century 21 Calling...",^[25] which was later shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000.^[26] Near the center of all this was Seattle artist Paul Horiuchi's massive mosaic mural, the region's largest work of art at the time, which now forms the backdrop of Seattle Center's Mural Amphitheater.^[24]

Foreign exhibits included a science and technology exhibit by Great Britain, while Mexico and Peru focused on handicrafts, while Japan and India attempted to show both of these sides of their national cultures. Other pavilions included one featuring Brazilian tea and coffee; a European Communities Pavilion from the then-six countries of the European Economic Community; a joint pavilion by those countries of Africa that had achieved independence by this time; Sweden's exhibit included the story of the salvaging of a 17th-century man-of-war from Stockholm harbor; and San Marino's exhibit of its postage stamps and pottery. Near the center of this was the DuPen Fountain featuring three sculptures by Seattle artist Everett DuPen.^[27]

World of Art

The Fine Arts Pavilion (later the Exhibition Hall) brought together an art exhibition unprecedented for the West Coast of the United States. Among the fifty contemporary American painters whose works shown were Joseph Albers, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, Jasper Johns, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Ben Shahn, and Frank Stella as well as Northwest painters Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves, Paul Horiuchi, and Mark Tobey. American sculptors included Leonard Baskin, Alexander Calder, Joseph Cornell, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, and 19 others. The fifty international contemporary artists represented included the likes of painters Fritz Hundertwasser, Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, and Francis Bacon, and sculptors Henry Moore and Jean Arp. In addition, there was an exhibit of Ancient Egyptian art and of 72 "masterpieces" ranging from Titian, El Greco, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Rubens through Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet and Turner to Klee, Braque, and Picasso, with no shortage of other comparably famous artists represented.^[28]

A separate gallery presented Northwest Coast Indian art, and featured a series of large paintings by Bill Holm introducing Northwest Native motifs.^[29]

World of Entertainment

A US$15 million performing arts program at the fair ranged from a boxing championship to an international twirling competition, but with no shortage of nationally and internationally famous performers, especially at the new Opera House and Playhouse.^[30] After the fair, the Playhouse became the Seattle Repertory Theatre; in the mid-1980s it became the Intiman Playhouse.^[31]

Opera House performances

Scheduled groups performing at the Opera House included:

Date (all dates are 1962)	Act
April 21	Opening Night: Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by guest conductor Igor Stravinsky with Van Cliburn as a guest soloist
April 22 and April 25	The Ed Sullivan Show, live telecasts
April 20 – May 5	Dunninger the Mentalist
May 6	The Littlest Circus
May 8 – May 12	The San Francisco Ballet
May 13	Science Fiction Panel including Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling
May 15 – May 16	Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Milton Katims, with guest soloists Isaac Stern, Adele Addison, and Albert DaCosta
May 17 – May 19	Victor Borge
May 22	Theodore Bikel
May 24 – May 25	The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy
May 29 – June 3	The Old Vic Company (Shakespeare performances)
June 7, June 9, June 11	Seattle Symphony production of Verdi's Aida, featuring Gloria Davy, Sandor Konya, Irene Dalis, Robert Merrill, and Jan Rubes
June 10	Josh White
June 17	Norwegian Chorus and Dancers
June 18 – June 19	Ukrainian State Dance Company (U.S. premiere)
June 22 – June 23	International Gospel Quartets
July 8	SPEBSQSA Barbershop Quartet Song Fest
July 9 – July 14	Bayanihan Dancers of the Philippines
July 24 – August 4	New York City Ballet Company
August 27 – September 2	Ballet Folklorico de Mexico
September 10	CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra
September 18 – September 23	D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (Gilbert and Sullivan operettas)
September 25 – September 30	Rapsodia Romîna: Romanian National Folk Ensemble and Barbu Lăutaru Orchestra of Bucharest (U.S. premiere)
October 2 – October 7	Uday Shankar Dancers
October 8 – October 13	Foo-Hsing Theater (Republic of China), youth Chinese opera
October 14	U.S. Marine Corps Band
October 16 – October 17	Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Milton Katims, world premiere of new work by Gerald Kechley

Source: ^[32]

Other performances

Events and performances at the Playhouse included Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre; a chamber music performance by Isaac Stern, Milton Katims, Leonard Rose and Eugene Istomin and by the Juilliard String Quartet; two appearances by newsman Edward R. Murrow; Bunraku theater; Richard Dyer-Bennet; Hal Holbrook's solo show as Mark Twain; the Count Basie and Benny Goodman jazz orchestras; Lawrence Welk; Nat King Cole; Ella Fitzgerald. also during the fair, Memorial Stadium hosted Ringling Brothers Circus, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Western Show, and an appearance by evangelist Billy Graham.^[33]

Show Street

At the northeast corner of the grounds (now the KCTS-TV studios ^[13]), Show Street was the "adult entertainment" portion of the fair. Attractions included Gracie Hansen's Paradise International (a Vegas-style floor show (rivalled next door by LeRoy Prinz's "Backstage USA"), Sid and Marty Krofft's adults-only puppet show, and (briefly, until it was shut down) a show featuring naked "Girls of the Galaxy."^[34][35] Tamer entertainment came in forms such as the Paris Spectacular wax museum, an elaborate Japanese Village, and the Hawaiian Pavilion.^[35]

Gayway

The Gayway was a small amusement park; after the fair it became the Fun Forest.^[13]

Boulevards of the World

Boulevards of the World was "the shopping center of the fair." It also included the Plaza of the States and the original version of the International Fountain.^[36]

Exhibit Fair

The Exhibit Fair provided another shopping district under the north stands of the Stadium.^[37]

Food and Favors

"Food and Favors," officially one of the "areas" of the fair, simply encompassed the various restaurants, food stands, etc. scattered around the grounds. These ranged from vending machines and food stands to the Eye of the Needle (atop the Space Needle) and the private Century 21 Club.^[38]

Food Circus

The Food Circus was a food court in the former armory now known as Center House. Unlike the current arrangement with a stage and a large open space for dancing, events, and temporary booths, many food booths were in the midst of the room as well as at the edges. There were 52 concessionaires in all, nine of them with exhibits in addition to their food for sale.^[39]

Skyride

In addition to the Space Needle and Alweg monorail (which still survive as of 2007) the fair also featured a Skyride, which ran 1,400 feet from the Gayway to the International Mall at the opposite corner of the grounds. The bucket-like three-person cars were suspended from cables that rose as high as 60 feet off the ground.^[40]

See also

• Century 21 Real Estate, which took its name from the fair.

External links

• A "cybertour" of the exposition at HistoryLink.
• Century 21 -- The 1962 Seattle World's Fair at HistoryLink
• "Seattle History: A Fair to Remember", a 40th anniversary report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• "Century 21 Calling..." at the SCI FI Drive-In

Notes

References

• Official Guide Book: Seattle World's Fair 1962, Acme Publications: Seattle (1962)

Preceded by Expo '58

World Expositions 1962

Succeeded by Expo 67

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