* modernism, exhibition architecture, character, nationalism Mark Crinson, Modern Architecture and the end of Empire (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 76. 1
David Dean, The Thirties; Recalling the English Architectural Scene (London: Trefoil Books, RIBA Drawing Series, 1983), 37. 2
William Whyte, ‘The Englishness of English Architecture: Modernism and the Making of a National International Style, 1927-1957’, Journal of the British Studies 48, No. 2 (2009): 444. 3
Hilde Heynen, ‘What belongs to architecture? Avantgarde ideas in the Modern Movement’ The Journal of Architecture 4, No.2 (2009): 132. 4
Worthy of the Mother Country: British pavilions on the eve of the Second World War Ilyas Azouzi
This study reflects upon the expressionist capacities of modernist architecture in the context of an international exhibition. 1930s pavilions served as laboratories to experiment with new approaches to appropriate and nationalise architecture inspired by modernist aesthetics. A focus on three pavilions erected by Britain in the run-up to the Second World War – one each at the 1937 Paris Exposition, the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition, and the 1939 New York World’s Fair – reveals that both the framework of ideological confrontations and Britain’s politico-diplomatic agenda have favoured modernism as a pragmatic choice. The three pavilions, erected by Oliver Hill, Herbert J. Rowes, and the firm of Easton and Robertson respectively, were planned with the principle that they would become famous images to be reproduced and diffused worldwide. From places to displays, to symbols to be displayed, the purpose was to be worthy to be a bold showcase of the nation and the Empire. In appearance, these buildings rejected the legacy of historical styles, and marked a caesura with the ‘heavy and simplified classicism’ traditionally employed by the country in these fairs.1 By commissioning these architects and these schemes, it was decided to use a new vocabulary to present the nation and its Empire to the eyes of the world. Lightweight structures, plain white façades, and window walls symbolised a turning point; the architecture embodied an engagement with modernity and seemed intended to evince the ‘spirit of the age.’2 The consensus during the 1930s held that modernism in Britain was problematic because it was perceived as a foreign language, an ‘unwelcomed style’ not compatible with British vernacular and architectural norms.3 However, it is necessary to analyse these pavilions considering the parameters and the issues associated with these exhibitions. There, architectural modernism served a different agenda. It was chosen for its material and functional purpose, the possibilities of expression it endorsed, as much as for the democratic message with which it was associated. While the emergent totalitarian states defined their identity through historicist and monumental forms, democratic nations found in modernism a way to break the limits imposed upon tradition. It allowed them to counteract the pomposity of the authoritarian regimes, and, as expressed by Siegfried Giedion, to carry a message of emancipation and liberation.4 It was visual 9