Impressions of the Brussels Exposition: Diversities, Faults Typify 'World, '58'

"...but to Adams the dynamo became a symbol of infinity. As he grew accustomed to the great gallery of machines, he began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross.... Before the end, one began to pray to it; inherited instinct taught the natural expression of man before silent and infinite force. Among the thousand symbols of ultimate energy, the dynamo was not so human as some, but it was the most expressive."

The Education of Henry Adams, chapter 25.

For Adams, the dynamo; for Brussels, the atom. Unlike the Chicago's World's Fair of 1900, the Exposition's first impression upon a visitor its huge aluminum-covered replica of an atom, the official symbol.

Its nine metal spheres gleaming in the daytime and flashing tiny lights at night, the Atomium dominates the Fair. The architecture, too, smacks of modernity and the future. One building looks like a great stone bird; another has a corrugated wall; the roof of the United Nations exhibit hall is a half-sphere. A few of the national pavilions deviate from the functional scheme--Thailand has a charming gilded pagoda; Italy a stucco villa. But for the most part, all the catchwords of the 20th century can describe the Fair--futuristic, atomic-age, electronic, Cinemascopic!

Water is the theme of the landscaping. Inside the pavilions as well as outside--there are artificial pools, fountains, and waterfalls. Nevertheless, it is virtually impossible to find a drinking fountain.

The size of the fairgrounds and the elaborateness of the buildings and landscaping make it difficult to believe that this "city" has a lifetime only six months. Most of the national pavilions are temporary structures, and some will be disassembled and transplanted to their own countries after October. The buildings constructed by the Belgians, however, have greater permanence and many of them were built with the vision that they might someday house the capital of a United Europe.

The Exposition city has its own transportation system, since no private vehicles larger than baby carriages are permitted. Open buses and small motorized carriages constitute the ground transport. Cable cars carry tourists above the Fair. And the Expo has its own "heliport" for aerial sight-seeing and heliocopter service to Amsterdam, Paris and other European cities.

Tired of traveling outdoors, the visitor next explores the interiors of the national exhibit halls. Most tourists head first to the Soviet and American pavilions, resolved to find out which is better.

The magnitude of this controversy has led many people to charge that the Expo is merely a new battlefield for the Cold War. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the American and Russian pavilions are situated next to each other, intensifying the inevitable competition between them. But this poularity battle, while it does exist, is not necessarily a bad thing. A world's fair is intended to summarize a particular era, and the miniature Cold War at Brussels is certainly a realistic portrayal of the world in the year 1958.

Neither East nor West can be credited with a victory at the Exposition. The tactics of the two major powers in their pavilion propaganda are vastly different. Russia has presented a formidable and rather frightening demonstration of her industrial and military prowess. The United States has tried the "soft-sell"; technical exhibits are well-hidden and the emphasis is on "the American way of life." As to which is more effective, that is purely a matter of personal taste.

The American pavilion guides have nicknamed the Soviet pavilion "the refrigerator," and the monicker is appropriate. It is an unaesthetic rectangular building, as cold and impersonal as a Siberian winter. The ground-floor exhibit hall is enormous, and the stolid statue of Lenin keeps a perpetual watch on the crowds.

Agricultural and industrial equipment constitutes the main exhibit. Numerous signs give statistics on the number of Russian workers, the amounts produced. There are photographs of husky Russian women operating factory machines, and an emphasis on women's participation in athletics. There is a new Russian car which resembles a new American car and there is a life-sized model of a modern apartment--but there is no evidence as to how many Soviet citizens can afford these luxuries.

The United States pavilion is characterized by spaciousness. From the exterior it is a round structure fronted by an attractive display of fountains, trees, and American flags.

Inside, one still has the sense of being out-of-doors. The roof has a circular opening almost as large as the enormous pool of water which dominates the main floor. There are real trees inside, and although they are dying, they add to the atmosphere.

The "soft-sell" in presenting the American way of life is evidenced in the main floor exhibit entitled Face of America. Here are such typical trivia of American life as a page-by-page display of a Sunday Times, a football uniform, a showcase filled with election buttons, and a section of California redwood.

Several times a day models descend the stairs to the platform over the pool for a fashion show--one of the biggest crowd pullers of the entire Exposition. The clothes modeled are all in a low-price range, to substantiate the claim of presenting "average" American life.

A few exhibits, however, fell victime to the charges that they were not typical of everyday America. There was concern lest visitors thought that every American child played with the elaborate modern toys on display. One filmstrip on life in these United States included a housewife flying her plane to the grocery. And people who do not care for modern art protested that the exhibit of contemporary paintings and sculpture was unrepresentative.

The two American exhibits that have attracted most attention are the Unfinished Work and Circarama. Unfinished Work was housed in three small huts behind the main pavilion, an attempt to explain three problems which the United States still needs to solve--the American Negro situation, the crowded city, and vanishing natural resources. The display in photographs and explanatory signs emphasized not the problems themselves but the progress that has been made toward their solution.

In August, however, the Unfinished Work exhibit was removed from the Fair. The official reason given was that the space was needed for additional exhibits on U.S. culture. But it is generally believed that the objections of Southern senators to the publicity on the Negro problem was largely responsible for the removal. Some people praised the removal on the grounds that each country should show off its best features. Others deplored the passing of what they believe an honest portrayal.

The greatest American success has been Circarama. This Walt Disney movie (not cartoons) takes viewers on a 20-minute color tour of the U. S. A., an uninterrupted panoramic scene in a complete circle. The spectators stand inside the circle, look up, and rotate their heads so as not to miss any of the breath-taking trip from the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate. Excellent propaganda, even for Americans.

In addition, the United States pavilion is the only one with free toilets.

The national pavilions do remarkably well at reflecting the national characters of various countries. The French pavilion is cluttered and marvelously disorganized--as if France sent one of everything that exists in the country. Britain's exhibit is solemn and stately. The main hall resembles Westiminister Abbey, the lights are subdued. There are no crowds and everyone files through in order. The guards at the door seem borrowed from the Buckingham Palace brigade, but they turn their heads and say a word of greeting to an occasional young girl. The hard-working Dutch were ambitious enough to build a model dike with artificial waves and a farm replete with cows, chickens, pigs, a farmer and his family.

International organizations and private industries also had exhibit halls. The Phillips Electric Company's exhibit of a symphonic poem in sight and sound, which many visitors passed up, portrayed current tensions better than anything else at the Exposition. As spectators gasped, pictures of apes, war, art, men, flashed on the walls in rapid succession, while sounds of music, air-raid sirens, and planes produced a swelling cacophony. It was a tribute to the marvels of electricity, a terrifying artistic expression of uncertainty.

At night the Expo becomes a wonderland. The exhibit pavilions close; the lights go on. Little points of light flicker in the spheres of the Atomium. White illuminated stars line the upper avenues and the fountains play in many colors.

Then the night life begins. At the cafes of "Belgique Joyeuse" the tourists drink and dance in a model old-time Belgian village. The amusement park is a medley of circus barkers and girlish squeals.

Some people feel that having fun is not enough justification for a world's fair. On one ship returning to the States, students hotly debated whether the Expo was "A Waste or Winner."

If it can be agreed that the purpose of a world's fair is to give a still picture of the turning world, then we can discount criticisms that the Fair lacked a unified theme, that there was a spirit of Cold War and not one of cooperation, and even that hot dogs were too expensive. Diversity, Cold War, and inflationary prices typify this year; and if these were evident at the Expo, it is not a short-coming. They merely added their bit in staging the drama, "World, '58.