Remembering The Future: A Tour of the Extant Architecture from the 1964 -1965 New York World’s Fair

Welcome to the Future ! ...or rather, the future as it was imagined a half century ago. World’s Fairs have always offered architects an opportunity to explore new concepts and technologies and to create memorable, visceral experiences for a broad public. Structures designed for the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair were emblematic of a turbulent period for both architecture and society. At this World’s Fair, Modern architecture met Pop Art. On this tour, we will examine extant architecture from the Fair, including works by Philip Johnson, Richard Foster, Wallace Harrison, and modern sculpture by Peter Muller Monk, Jose de Rivera, and others, while exploring that memorable, controversial exposition in the context of a time of extraordinary change.  While the previous fair held on the same site 25 years before in 1939-1940 was heralded as “The World Of Tomorrow”, The 1964-1965 Fair was in contrast lambasted by critics as the “World of Already”. Conceived during a time of relative consensus in 1958, it opens amidst the political conflicts and cultural upheavals of the mid-Sixties. This was as time in the architectural world of questioning and criticism of Modernist orthodoxy in design and urban planning. It would be a Fair that presented its 50 million visitors the work of Walt Disney and Michelangelo. An international exhibition that introduced a broad public to both the Dead Sea Scrolls and Picturephone. To the immersive multimedia experience and the fond memory of their first Belgian Waffle. Critics of the time dismissed the Fair’s vision of the future as outdated before the Fair had opened. From our point of view in that projected future, perhaps we see it differently…as a proto-retro-future…or…perhaps as proto-post Modernism? Decide for yourself as you discover the New York City Pavilion (current Queens Museum), Unisphere, World's Fair/Winston Churchill Pavilion (now Queens Zoo Avery), New York Hall of Science, Port Authority Heliport/Pavilion (now Terrace on the Park), and the New York State Pavilion (now partial occupied by the Queens Theater in the Park) as well as a number of surprises along the way.

• Name : John Kriskiewicz