When exhibitions were GREAT
W.H. Goss transfer painted china sold with three boxes of similar pieces, all decoratd with logos or scenes rom the exhibition Exhibition, Glasgow.
Hitler had torn up the Versailles Treaty and was preparing to march into Europe, while in the UK, the real possibility of war was uppermost in people’s minds.
The fourth of five great exhibitions to be hosted by Glasgow “the workshop of the empire”, it marked 50 years since the city’s first, the International Exhibition of 1888 held at Kelvingrove Park, and also offered a chance to boost the Scottish economy, recovering from the depression of the 1930s.
It was staged on a 175-acre site at Bellahouston Park on the south side of Glasgow, and opened by George VI on May 3.
Despite being one of the wettest summers on record, in its six-month run it attracted more than 12.5 million visitors from around the world, almost three times Scotland’s population at the time. Each paid a shilling (5p) but the event made a loss of £130,000.
Around 150 large and small futuristic palaces and pavilions were built in just 18 months, temporarily transforming the green public park into a city of striking modernist architecture, wide boulevards, gardens and fountains.
Respectively they showed life and culture and engineering and manufacturing achievement in the British Isles, alongside others promoting the Commonwealth.
The Scottish architect Sir Basil Spence (1907-1976) was commissioned to design pavilions on the north and south sides of the showground, one depicting Scotland’s public services, the other its past and future.
Each had huge blue-painted entrance towers and interiors decorated with the work of Scottish sculptors and artists, while a third pavilion was for Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), the largest chemical producers in the empire.
The modernist building had pylons respectively representing earth, air and water, centred by a 200-foot beam of light for fire and a fountain, the water coloured by the firm’s chemical dyes.
A house commissioned from Spence by the Council of Art and Industry promoted Scottish manufacturing and craftsmanship, while a Highland village was complete with a laird’s castle.
The shadow of war hung over pavilions occupied by the armed forces, but there was a Peace Pavilion in one of the quieter areas and by way of light relief, holiday camp entrepreneur Billy Butlin masterminded the amusement arcade funfair. Its participants were marking the end of the empire.