The Universal International Exhibition, Paris 1900

A mammoth, chaotic event, the Universal International Exhibition held in Paris in 1900 can be seen as a late celebration of nineteenth-century values, imperialism and eclecticism. It included displays of real live `natives' from the colonies and real camels, a complete medieval French village and its inhabitants reconstructed on the Right Bank, and buildings ranging from Serbian Byzantine and English Jacobean to Austrian Gothic. But the exhibition was also intended to look forward to the new century: an elevated electric railway surrounded the site, and it held examples of what the general public considered to be the last word in modern architecture and design, epitomized by the Art Nouveau. Contemporary Pathe News film, still photographs and writings show us the tangle of artistic ideas from which the modern movements of the twentieth century were to emerge.

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