PARIS EXHIBITION

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 April 1937, Page 10

PARIS EXHIBITION

■; AN AMBITIOUS AFFAIR. The Peiris Exhibition of Modem Arte And -Crafts mjjfet officially -open on May 1, said the -Paris' correspondent of the' “Manchester. Guardian’’ recently. Various’ Government and trade-union speakers have, in addressing the workers engaged on the ex-hi-bition, attached a certain symbolic significance to this date, and tradeuuioiLiOffi.ciala.iJUPiU'.U.cular have. proclaimed the timely completion of the exhibition as “a working-class victory.” KI. Blum, in his recent speech to the workers, spoke in the same vein, though he added that the exhibition must fie regarded as the work of “Frefhce as a whole.” The Government is attaching quitc exceptional importance to the success of the exhibition as a factor in France’s economic recovery- It has already been estimated that the American visitors alone, who will next summer “combine” the Coronation with the Paris Exhibition, should bring fouir to five thousand million francs of foreign exchange into the country, and that the total number of foreign .visitors- should swell this allimportant item of invisible exports to about ten thousand millions —a- contribution equal to that of the best years of “tourism”- in France, in the' late twenties.

The question asked on all sides is whether the exhibition will be ready ■—or almost reaily-Mil time, for no exhibition is ever quite ready. It must be admitted that a lengthy visit to the exhibition grounds' is not totally reassuring. It ■is still difficult to get even a rough idea-of what the exhibition will look like. In the case ofTxnany pavilions oven the “first stone”' has not yet been laid; of tl}e British pavilion, for instance, there is as'-yet next to nothing, except the platform on the river bank near the Pont d’leua where it will be built. A British Official admitted that he had never seen an exhibition “quite so behindhand,” 'though he added that ohce the steelwork of the pavilion was 1 finished—and .' this’ would: require three weeks—the rest could be finished in time, with-luck., ; This .cuts it all rather close, and the same applies, to most other parts, of the exhibition.

•/ The labour difficulties in the way have been' considerable: the introduction of the 40-liour week in the building trade has slowed down the work, and although the workers, in response to M. Blurii’s appeal, agreed in priciple to work on Saturdays and Sundays, provided- the work was done in' three shifts'' (which; - has already brought up the number of men directly employed on the exhibition to 10,000), the exhibition grounds were still idle throughout a recent week-end. By some peculiar arrangement the Germans. .Italians. and* Belgians were allowed to send their' own labour, to Paris, and although 1 these' workers are stipnoscd to conforiii to the French labour laws, work ton • these pavilions appears t<r-be in progress even at times when.it is. hot .in the other parts of the exhibition, and there is no doubt that the Belgian, German, and Italian sections 7 are much mqre, advanced than most of-the other buildings. " < It is hardly necessary, at the present stage, to.describe in detail what is . yet to be, and an indication of the principal features of the . exhibition should be sufficient. • The, exhibition, one of the largest ever conceived, will occupy an immense area stretching along the banks of the Seine from the heart of Paris —the Place de la Concorde —to the lie des Cygnes, almost the extreme limit of the Residential west end. It. -may perhaps be regretted that this, beautiful stretch of the Seine —which, in itself, is as good an“exhibition” as anything that can be offered to the foreign visitor—should be built over- with a mass, of temporary 'plaster work, aiidplhat the exhibition should not have been built in the Bois de Boulogne, after the manner of the Exhibition of 1931, which was concentrated in the rural- setting of the Bois. de Vincennes. But the present effort is admittedly, more ambitious. -"'Gong- f.ibm east to west, the amusement^'park .will be planted in the Esplanade ;des ilnvalidbs; " there will be a variety of pavilions along the two harrow strips "along the banks of the Seine- —on the Quai d’Orsay and (lie Coui’s la ,we reach the Pout d’Alma... The'space from here as far us tlie Trocadero will be occupied by a mass of large “palaces” of modern arts and- crafts. ''The main entrance to the exhibition will be from the Place du'Trocadero.

.OLD BUILDINGS GONE. The bulbous old Trocadero" of 1878, with its Moorish towers and its vast coucert-hail, which was as good as useless on account of the bad acoustics, has been demolished in the last two years; and its place lias been taken by the fine-shaped white collon-ade-like side-wings of the. new Troca-dero,-on top of the ~Chaillot hill, facing the Eiffel Tower on. the other side of the river, with the widened lena Bridge between them. The new Trocmlcro hall, sunk into the grouind. will, unfortunately, not be finished until July at the earliest, and the principal theatrical performances—accompanying the exhibition will take place at least during its first, few months, at .the Theatre des Champs Elysees. The foreign pavilions will be concentrated at the foot of the Chaillot hill—here will be the German, Russian, Dutch. Egyptian and Italian sections; or opposite, on the other side of the river, north of the Eiffel Tower. Among- the pavilions there" will be the British, American, Czechoslovak, and Belgian pavilions. Various other buiidings will be built round the feet of the Eiffel Tower.-f-rather like mushrooms around a tree—and will stretch all down the Champ de as- far as the Ecole Militaire: The French Regional Centre with pavilions of the various French provinces, will be in a wide area south-west of the Eiffel Tower. • - The colonial section will be, as already said, in the He des Cygnes, that'narrow island between specially enlarged platforms built on piles- driven into’ the bed of the rivet. There will also be a large variety of “sectfons” devoted to agriculture and all the different. arts and crafts of France. These parts of the exhibition promise to be particularly instructive to all interested in the everyday activities of France and in (he line quality of her workmanship. We are also promised “fetes of light” on. the Seine, musical fdles, as well as exotic fetes in the colonial section; and much interest has been aroused by the “Palace of Cold” which, by means of refrigerating machinery, -will be covered with snow throughout, the summer. The total area, of the exhibition will be 250 acres, and it will take days, if not weeks, to see everything. Every section will, of course, have its special gastronomic attractions. One of these will be the Baron de Beef restaurant in the British section,

where (he world will be initiated jWo the mystery of English joints. I he size of the British site is 2-1,000 square feet; it will be on two levels connected by a ramp. The larger part will be on the level of the Quai d’Orsay, the other nearer the water level. The Department of Overseas Trade is responsible for all the arrangements, and (he Council 1 for Art, and Industry has undertaken the responsibility for the decoration of the pavilion and the selection of the exhibits. The Commissioner General is Mr Claude l.aylor, to whom British firms 1 wishing Io ’exhibit under their own names must apply. The architect is Mr Oliver Hill, and the names of the subcommittee provide an indication ol the nature of the principal British exhibits—agriculture. rural industries, books, printing, dress, furniture, leather and sports goods, plastics, pottery and glass, silver, and textiles. It is claimed that the British pavilion will be “a conspectus’ of British life and civilisation." BRITISH PAVILION BEHIND. Work on the British Pavilion at the Paris Exhibition is so far behind schedule that a suggestion has been made oflicially that" a team of British craftsmen should be sent, over to speed up the -erection of the building (said a writer in (he “Daily Tele--graph" on March 22). The opening date of the exhibition is tentatively .fixed for May 1, but a postponement seems inevitable. It will, in any case, be impossible to finish the British Pavilion by the beginning of May.' Work began on the British Pavilion in November. Since then the Department of Overseas T' 1 " s been held up by a succession “S and by heavy floods. Britain’s share of th- as to have been about. <C3.? " ' Extra labour costs arc likely to im.>case the figure to between EGu.OiiO and CSli.ooO. On the lower portion of the site the flood water has been as high as live foil. Until the waler has entirely receded the work of erecting steel members to carry girders across the railway and Hie road > annul bo completed. Britain litis refrained from sending over large numbers of workmen berarse this would contravene I he inter-1 national convention relating to exhi-j bilious of "hi detixieme categoric." By that convention the participating Governments do viol construct their own pavilions; the French Govern-

ment provides steel shells to be completed in accordance with the architectural requirements of each country. Labour and materials are French. There are at present, by arrangement with the French Government, a small number of British key men. at work on the pavilion. The total strength employed is- now only about 70. When the flood recedes and work can proceed at tlte lower end of Ihe site, about 200 will he employed. Work on the German pavilion, which, it. is estimated, will cost in the. neighbourhood of -£360,000, is well ahead. But the Germans have, ignored the exhibition convention and have imported a. full team of workpeople, -who ■are row racing to complete the Nazi pavilion ahead of the U.S.S.R.. whose staff is largely French.