Model, Theme Center—New York World’s Fair, 1939 Designed by Wallace K. Harrison (American, 1895-1981) and J. André Fouilhoux (French, 1879-1945), architects Designed in 1937, executed in 1938 USA Stainless steel, wood, plastic 86.17.1 Best known for their buildings for Rockefeller Center, the architecture firm of Harrison and Fouilhoux won the competition for a "prototype pavilion." In 1936, they began to design a structure that would represent the "World of Tomorrow." With their stark geometric shapes and gleaming white finish, the Trylon and Perisphere (the Theme Center) became the symbol of the fair. As the urban planner Hugh Ferriss, an active participant on the fair’s design committee, declared, the structures were "shaped like the world, with its pointer toward tomorrow." The Theme Center dominated the grounds and clearly established the Fair’s overriding message–that a positive future was possible through modern technology. Three interconnected parts made up the Theme Center: a 610-foot-high Trylon (three-sided, narrow pyramid form), a 180-foot in diameter Perisphere (round globe-shaped structure), and a spiral, 950-foot-long Helicline (long, linear form) ramp way which linked the first two structures. The easily recognizable design of the Theme Center made it a perfect icon to identify the Fair on souvenir and publicity materials. This model was made as part of a promotional campaign. Forty-nine were fabricated and then mounted on the roofs of limousines to form a "goodwill motorcade," which traveled across the country in 1938. The models were later given to the governors of each of the then–48 states, and to President Roosevelt. In the mid-1930s, "tomorrow" promised to bring better times. However, when the fair opened in April of 1939, Germany had already invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia; the future seemed fraught with peril. "Democracity," an enormous model of the ideal city of the future housed in the Perisphere and designed by Henry Dreyfuss, expressed American’s faith that their political and economic system could survive not only the Depression but the even greater threat posed by a second world war. Back to World Fairs & Expositions Main Back to Collections Main