PLANS ADVANCED

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1936, Page 11

PLANS ADVANCED

PARIS EXHIBITION

EVENT OF NEXT YEAR

There is no doubt about the genius of t:ie French as exhibitionists (writes a faris correspondent of the "Man* Chester Guardian"). They begin with *" superb site and the rest follows. At She Colonial Exhibition at Vincennes th'.y went a little far afield, and tncre were grumbles at the difficulty cJ getting there. The exhibition that is to be opened next year has reverted to the site of that of Decorative Arts held in 1925, and to the familiar exhibition ground of the Trocadero and the Invalides.

Already the ghost of the exhibition j has become the objective of the Sunday afternoon walk. The Champs de Mars, the Eiffel Tower, the Pont d'lena, upon which much widening is going on, the Trocadero Gardens, are crowded with fathers of families, sons home from military service, trios of little sisters dressed alike—"la famille," in short. They comment on the old Trocadero. built of the exhibition of 1878 in that vaguely Oriental style which is still inclined to overwhelm exhibitions; on that very old friend the Eiffel Tower, built for another exhibition in 1889; on the new semicircle of white colonnade which is already up, flanked by the two new museums for modern art. Most Cy£ all they like the devastation of the gardens of the Trocadero — the heaps of sand, the debris, the mixing machines, scaffolding poles, engines, sifters, what not-^which are gradually being reduced into the new formal garden leading down to the Pont d'lena and the Eiffel Tower, . THE NEW TROCADERO. The Vincennes Exhibition left a permanent museum. The exhibition of 1937 will leave behind it the new Trocadero, which is safely classic on the plans thatßaronHaussmann desired for the exhibition of 1867; the two new museums of modern art; the forty metres extra width of the Pont d'lena, besides a great deal of rebuilding on the left bank and consequent abolition oX old warehouses and coal stores. With the river up the middle of it and with the cross-piece of the Trocadero and the Champs de Mars, Parisians will have an exhibition of which the physical features could hardly be improved upon. The exhibition is described as being that of "Art et Techniques" as applied to modern life. It is aiming at being a synthesis of the progress achieved by the present generation. Especially in the domain of art and craftsmanship it is intended to create direct contact between the artist and the craftsman. Thus it is divided into such classifications as "Thought Conveyance"— 1 that is, libraries, museums, music, congresses, moving pictures; scientific discovery applied to industry; ' social questions; artistic and' technical education; urbanism, including architecture, housing, streets, and monuments. When to these are added such sections as decorative art, transport, building, touring, it will be seen. that there is : little untouched by the exhibition and that its limits are rather.those of time or period than of subject. LIGHT THE FEATURE. r - There was the question of choosing ■an outstanding feature of the exhibition. As the ,Ville Lumiere, Paris chose light. Experiments are continually going on with light effects, diffused or direct, as a structural asset to architecture or a means of showing up existing buildings. The Eiffel Tower has long been used for magnificent flighting advertisement and is one' of the seats of flighting experiment just now. Not only the exhibition, but Paris itself'will be relighted. There •will be indirect and underwater lighting effects, lamps arranged in all sorts of shapes, searchlights, jets of steel, clouds of coloured' smoke, and the Eiffel Tower itself will be transformed into a gigantic flag to, be., outlined in silver or,colour against the sky.Various lighting effects are to go with special music by Stravinsky, Honegger, and others. Paris is. rejuvenating itself for the great day. The dome of the Invalides is being gilded; the Louvre practises flood-lighting two evenings a week; the Opera is being done up. The British Pavilion is almost upon the Pont d'lena. It is showing the British dining-room—not the dinner; lour rooms demonstrating a country cottage, processes such as printing, domestic architecture, hunting, shooting, leather work, textiles, agricultural and rural industries. Tartans are to be made a point of and so is silver. In this connection it is much to be hoped that, selection will be confined to really British products, in the sense that eccentricities and imitations will be avoided.