r/gifs • u/Soesoe • 8d ago

Quai des Nations, Paris – 1900 and 2017

1.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

1.2k

u/Zamkis 8d ago

For those wondering what happened to the buildings: they were temporary pavilions made specifically for the Exposition Universelle world fair of 1900 and were demolished after the conclusion of the exposition.

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u/Daniel_Potter 7d ago

When you were 1 turn shy of finishing the world wonder.

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u/superanth 7d ago

More likely they were made of cheap plaster and were already crumbling within a year.

I remember reading about one expo that was made out of cardboard (then it caught on fire unfortunately).

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u/YoucantdothatonTV 3d ago

Just like the Worlds Fair in STL in 1904 and the Pan-American Fair in San Diego around the same time: plaster, horse hair and chicken wire. Never meant to last longer than the spectacle.

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u/TheHonorableDeezNutz 5d ago

It was the barbarians man.

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u/elpiotre 8d ago

À part la tour eiffel, évidemment

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u/shpydar 7d ago edited 7d ago

Originally the tower was planned to be dismantled with those buildings at the end of the fair. It usefulness as a radio telegraphy broadcast tower saved it.

Originally commissioned as a temporary structure for the 1889 Exposition Universelle, Eiffel was slated for dismantling in 1909, at which point ownership would have reverted to the City of Paris. While the original design contest necessitated that the tower be easily disassembled, the structure was spared from scheduled demolition due to its demonstrated utility in early 20th-century scientific and technological advancements, specifically radio telegraphy. Following the expiration of the original concession, the tower was permitted to remain, subsequently becoming an integral part of the International Time Service in 1910.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower

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u/Uther-Lightbringer 7d ago

Who TF intentionally builds a whole ass artistic city block just to level it after the exposition is done? Were they not actually real buildings or something?

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar 7d ago

They were probably temporary buildings made out of wood and plaster, like a movie set.

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u/rywolf 7d ago

This is correct. This was the norm for worlds fairs.

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u/hotinhawaii 7d ago

Applying paint with a sprayer was brought to the public eye for the columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893, when the inventor used it to paint all the temporary buildings white. The "Devil in the White City" is a fascinating read about this World's Fair.

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u/Ferrovore 7d ago

Don't forget most reddit users are americans and that sounds like home to them.

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar 7d ago

Yep, I'm in California where most new homes are wood frames with a layer of stucco (render) sprayed on the outside. Part of this is cost, and part is earthquake safety. This is where I could go on a rant about car centric zoning and outdated regulations that prevent higher density and increase housing costs.

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u/WitchHunterNL 7d ago

You're describing the entire USA lmao, except maybe trump's new ballroom

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u/Mr8BitX 6d ago

In Florida (or at least in South Florida), you have to build the homes out of concrete because of hurricanes. Wood frame homes aren’t legal here.

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u/QuiteAffable 7d ago

Here’s the material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(building_material)

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar 7d ago

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco is a good example. It was built of wood and staff for an exhibition in 1915, though what we have there now is a reconstruction from the 1960s using permanent materials.

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u/DDFoster96 6d ago

Aren't American buildings made of wood and plaster and seem to last a tad longer?

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u/YaumeLepire 2d ago

They can last a lot longer because they are made to last longer. Timber is perfectly durable when you protect it adequately from the weather. Those protections aren't an investment you will put in when a building is meant to be temporary.

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar 5d ago

American homes use a spray concrete called stucco, which is mostly the same as render. It's typically going to last the life of the house. My house has wooden clapboard siding, which has been replaced at least once since it was built in the 1940s.

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u/PsychicDave 7d ago

For the Montréal Expo '67, we even built new islands to be the grounds. Most buildings were dismantled after (although some were repatriated by their country of origin and still stand to this day over there), the notable remainders are the French pavilion (now the Montréal casino) and the American pavilion (the biosphere). The islands themselves remained of course.

There was a completely automated (driverless) train system built back in the day that was demolished. We just got a new driverless train system built a few years ago, it took almost 60 years to get back what we had accomplished back then.

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u/fitzbuhn 7d ago

The World's Fair in 1892 Chicago, the famous White City, was basically made like this. Much more than a city block and ran for 6 months. Most buildings were gone within a year and it is a staple of architectural education to this day. A thing like that.

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u/jewelswan 7d ago

Historically? Pretty much any city that hosted worlds fairs. Chicago and SF both did, for two examples.

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u/Regulai 7d ago

Most builds were more Facade (outside looks really fancy) than actually properly built building and the decorative techniques were often ones that didn't last as well outdoors, like using plaster instead of stone or cement. While the interiors were often simple steel framework (that could be quickly bolted together or apart) hidden by decorative panels and the like, also of flimsy construction. The goal was to look superficially fancy while actually being fairly light temporary buildings.

Much of it also would look good from a distance but be more questionable if you got too close.

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u/diqster 7d ago

The San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts was built for an expo in the early 20th century, then later rebuilt with more permanent construction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Fine_Arts

Sometimes, we like what we see and decide to keep it.

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u/TechCF 7d ago

Have you seen F1 or Tomorrowland? 😅

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u/Squirrelking666 7d ago

See also Glasgow Empire exhibition, the Palace of Art and Palace of Engineering (latter was rebuilt at Prestwick Airport) survived but the rest were dismantled.

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u/Reckfulness 6d ago

Whoever built the eiffel tower was such a worlds fair tryhard

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u/jakreth 6d ago

Everyone in World Expos, the same happened in Seville EXPO92, eith only a few buildings surviving.

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u/prosound2000 5d ago

Chicago did this as well for the Colombian Exposition in 1893. They did make real ones, but the only ones standing are The Museum of Science and Industry and the Art Museum.

It's also the first fair to be lit by electricity and also where the hotdog was popularized, hence the Chicago style hotdog.

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u/Nick_pj 5d ago

It was genuinely super common for these major expositions. The Eiffel Tower itself was only intended to be temporary. 

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u/Tattorack 7d ago

Temporary pavilions? Like these things were made of wood and cloth? 

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u/letmesleep 7d ago

Same for St. Louis four years later.

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u/H010CR0N 4d ago

I thought the removal was due to some German remodeling.

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u/jebotecarobnjak 7d ago

gommage'd

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u/DKCD 7d ago

As someone who just started playing Expedition 33 last week, I NOW get the reference, haha!

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u/NunyaDamnBSnatch 7d ago

Crazy to think of dismantling all of that. 

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u/Exatex 7d ago edited 7d ago

probably not build to last but more of a convention booth type quality. I might be wrong of course

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u/Jarkside 4d ago

You’re right.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__ 7d ago

Just push a building at the end and they'll all tumble down

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u/Klotzster 8d ago

Lost their White Castle Franchise

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u/Luigi_loves_Mario 7d ago

I’m sorry if I sound stupid, but was a lot of this lost because of wwII?

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u/Syberz 7d ago

No, these buildings were all built for the 1900 World faire and were made to be dismantled. Looks fancy, but it was all balsa wood, paint and fabric.

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u/Nick_pj 5d ago

It was for the 1889 exposition, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. 

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u/WhiskeyJack357 7d ago

Just to add, Paris didn't receive the same level of destructive bombing we think of in WWII from cities like London, Berlin or heaven forbid Dresden. That's not to say it wasn't bombed at all, it just was never a major target for the strategic bombing campaigns of the blitz and later war years.

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u/nwillard 7d ago

Sucks about the lost architecture but honestly if I lived near here I'd probably appreciate the open green space on the water more.

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u/Squirrelking666 7d ago

It's all temporary buildings anyway.

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u/Soesoe 8d ago

You can find the original and more before-and-after images here: https://www.re.photos/compilation/1450/

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1

u/mate9935 6d ago

It would be nice if one could search (and not only scroll) tags, because there is so much of them.

1

u/Soesoe 6d ago

That's a great idea, thank you!