Customer Reviews

Exit to Tomorrow: History of the Future, World's Fair Architecture, Design, Fashion 1933-2005

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An interesting though none too vigorous survey of thirteen world fairs and expositions. It really covers twelve in any detail because the 1942 Rome effort didn't get much passed the planning stage. Udo Kultermann provides a twenty page fairs overview describing the inspired origins of the 1851 Crystal Palace and 1889 Paris Fair which set the standard for future endeavors (incidentally, in my copy page twenty-one repeats three paragraphs from page nine).

Two Fairs, Chicago (1933/4) and New York (1939/40) probably deserve the extensive coverage they get in the book. Both occurred at trying times and projected a bright future courtesy of science and both had huge attendances. After the Second World War fairs gradually changed from mechanical and science oriented to the problems and suggested solutions facing man in the modern world. Whatever the theme any fair allowed designers and architects to indulge in fantasy for a few months before the structures were torn down. Fortunately there are still standing reminders of these past futures: the Atomium, Brussels (1958) the Seattle (1962) Space Needle, the Unisphere from New York (1964) or Moshe Sadie's Habitat from Montreal Expo (1967) for example.

The book's sub-title: World's Fairs Architecture, Design, Fashion 1933--2005 is basically covered pictorially with two hundred photos or more. I thought this had an inherent editorial weakness because they are mostly PR shots and unfortunately the quality various enormously. I think a much more rigorous photo selection would have helped by deleting several of the soft focus or confusing images. Strangely there is a major omission: none of the Fairs have a site map. The addition of the standard aerial or three-quarters looking down on all the exhibits and pavilions would seem an obvious graphic to include for each featured fair.

Exit Tomorrow will give you a brief overview of past optimism and the two page bibliography has plenty of books for further study, especially the wonderful New York World's Fair of 1939/40.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

I liked looking at the pictures, but I missed having more text. The text is only intros to each fair, and to be honest, what's there is bland, contradictory (more than one fair is credited with introducing television. for example) and there was even one page reprinted out of sync. Still, the pictures are mostly new to me on some of the less well-written-up expos. So, good for filling a collection, not a starting point.

This is an interesting but disappointing book. There seem to be more illustrated postcards and illustrator renderings rather than actual photographs of the actual architecture. There is a dramatic and frightening photo of the Paris 1937 Germany pavilion that is captioned. The caption discusses it and its ominous juxstaposition with the Soviet pavilion but then fails to picture it. Perhaps the photos I am looking for don't exist but that is what I was looking for in this book. Still, it is a good start, many of the pictures and illustrations of the architecture are fascinating. Perhaps someone will build on this publication. A worlds fair of the past worlds fair's architecture would be awesome to visit.

Though there are some interesting photos and illustrations in this book the historical references in the test contain glaring errors. The Chicago Century of Progress Exposition was not held in Jackson Park, site of the World's Colombian Exposition of 1893 as claimed by the text It was built on reclaimed land in Lake Michigan near downtown.

I could detail more errors but this is a review not a fact check, something that should have been done prior to publishing.

The rest of the text is minimal and cursory for a book claiming to be a "History of the Future...". If you are looking for interesting pictures, there are a few here that are not available elsewhere, but most are postcards and other commonly available images. The short shrift given some of the fairs like 1937 fair in Paris and more obviously the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco really detract from the book.

Overall, it's a picture book with words thrown in to fill space.