Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition CommissionLouisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
History
Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 : Saint Louis, Mo.)
The Austrian Government Building was of impressionistic architecture. It
was 60 meters long, 35 meters wide, and built in the form of a T. From
the transepts a middle aisle, 24 meters broad, extended to the building
line. On either side of the aisle exits led to the loggias and to the
lawns. The pavilion was built of wood and all the rooms had skylights.
The style of architecture and decoration was modern, with a classical
toning. The exterior of the building was faced with a grayish,
yellow-colored gypsum, shaded with gold, dark blue, and light green. Two
groups of figures, above life size, adorned the main porch of the
central building. The imperial coat of arms, with a crown surrounded by
a large wreath, was raised above the center of the pavilion, and to the
right and left two sphinxes crowned the gables. The center building
(garden front) was finished with two enormous square pylons, with
festoons and masks and decorated with all the coats of arms of the
Austrian crown lands. Four stela-bearing gilded busts were symmetrically
placed along the front of the flower beds, in which monumental fountains
had been erected. The interior of the building was divided into fifteen
rooms. To the left and right of the entrance hall, which was adorned
with a marble bust of the Emperor, were the official apartments, one of
which was meant as a library and reading room and the other as a
reception room. Beyond the entrance hall was the technical exhibition of
the ministry of railways, which likewise occupied the room on the
left-hand side for an exhibition, "Sceneries and People of Austria." The
hall to the right was devoted to the department of the ministry of
commerce for the building of waterways. At the back part of the middle
aisle a large hall was devoted to the exhibits of the professional art
schools, and two smaller ones showed interiors executed by the schools
for arts and crafts in Vienna and Prague. The fine-arts exhibits of the
Vienna Artists' Association and of the association called "Hagenbund"
were on the right of the transepts; pictures by Bohemian and Polish
artists on the opposite side.
The artists and artisans who took part in building and decorating the
Austrian Government pavilion were as follows: The plans of the whole
building, the entrance hall, the two halls of the ministry of railways,
and the hall containing the exhibition of waterways were designed by the
chief architect, Oberbaurat Ludwig Bauman, Josef Meissner substituting
him in the superintendence of the works; contractor J. Lecoeur.
The library was designed by Leopold Bauer, architect, and the architect
Joseph Pleonik designed the reception room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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