An Attempt at Optimism While Dreaming of the Perisphere

At the 1939 World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York City, architects Wallace Harrison and J. Andre Fouilhoux introduced the world to two “monumental” modernistic structures called the Perisphere and the Trylon. The theme of the World’s Fair that year was “The World of Tomorrow,” which at the height of a fascist takeover of Europe, and uncertain American participation in those matters, seemed like a desperate if not overly enthusiastic hope for a new era. Those structures don’t exist anymore, which is a shame, because a 100-foot diameter sphere is something that I’d really like to see, but I’m relegated to Google image searches. Inside this sphere was an exhibition, more like a diorama, designed by Henry Dreyfuss, titled Democracity, which depicted a utopian city of the future. The work was viewed from above on a moving walkway, and was an attempt at envisaging how a city and its people could and would live in the future, in some semblance of cooperation and harmony. After the fair, the Perisphere and the Trylon were demolished and the scrap was used for World War II defense materials. So it goes…