The Future of 1939

Gallery of photos from the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Statue of a Pony Express rider being ambushed by Indians, from the AT&T Pavilion.

GM Building. One of the interesting things to me is that despite World War II, architecture took up in the 1950s right where it left off in 1939, along the path of abstract modernism. This was how the future looked in 1939 and it remained how the future looked right into the 1960s, just as much in the Soviet Union and Japan as in western Europe and North America. Whatever modernism was about, it was a powerful, worldwide movement that couldn't even be derailed by the greatest slaughter humanity has ever contrived.

The Electric Utilities Building at night. Electric power was big at the fair, celebrating one of the real triumphs of the 1930s, rural electrification.

The Maritime Commerce Building. More at the Atlantic.