Gezicht op het landbouwgebouw, ontworpen door Charles McKim op de World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 1893

Editor: This is a photographic print from 1893 by Charles Dudley Arnold, showcasing the Agricultural Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The boat in the foreground gives the whole scene a stately, almost cinematic feel. What do you see when you look at this image? Curator: Immediately, I think about the materiality of the "White City." The grand neoclassical architecture wasn't built to last; it was primarily plaster and staff, a mix of plaster of Paris, cement, and jute fibers. Consider the labor involved: armies of workers, many recent immigrants, hastily constructing this vision of American progress. This albumen print, fixed onto paper, becomes a record of that immense, ephemeral undertaking, its consumption, and its afterimage. Editor: So, it’s less about the building itself and more about what it represents and how it came to be? Curator: Exactly. Look at the image's starkness, the almost brutal clarity of the print. This isn’t just documenting architecture, it's documenting a particular moment of industrial capacity and social ambition, manifested through material and labor. It prompts us to consider the exposition’s influence and the workers' stories omitted from those official narratives. Editor: I never thought about it that way – the physical materials as telling a story, a story beyond just the image. So much hidden labor! Curator: And consider photography’s own industrialization. The mass production of images allowed for wide dissemination of this constructed image, fueling the narrative of American exceptionalism. How does viewing the architectural vision shift by knowing it was built on cheap materials? Does that amplify or cheapen it? Editor: That really makes you rethink the intentions and the reality behind these seemingly grand structures. Thanks for sharing that perspective!