This is not what you thought, but the name of one of the most mysterious objects of the early 20th century. To be more precise, the English abbreviation for the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, held in 1915 near the city of San Francisco, California, USA. Despite the scale of this action, it was not easy to find his usual photographs in good resolution. There are quite a few old postcards, retouched beyond recognition, but they usually give out a monotonous plot. Thanks to them, one might think that this was an ordinary event in the general list of similar ones held at that time around the world. But it is not so.
None of the exhibitions held at that time could compare with this one, at least in terms of the geographical scale of what was happening.
For this exhibition, buildings in a large area of San Francisco off the Pacific coast were demolished. The exhibition was timed to coincide with the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. This event was most likely a landmark, and therefore did not skimp on funds. Obviously, at that time in the United States, it was easier to carry out large cargo turnover with the western part of the country by sea. Putting the channel into operation solved a lot of problems, and they decided to celebrate this event properly.
The situation in San Francisco at the time remained difficult. Several years ago, the city experienced a series of powerful earthquakes, the consequences of which had not yet been eliminated by that time. Despite this, a huge and quite respectable exhibition complex emerged in one year.
Promotional video:
The fact that it was built in just a year is confirmed by numerous photographs.
As you can see, the architects modeled the future buildings in the photo from 1914, simply by drawing them with an outline. Many will probably ask the question, how did you manage to build all this at such a rapid pace and on such a scale? In general, there is no difficulty here.
The construction of buildings was carried out using a simplified technology. The metal frame was sheathed with ordinary wood, and a material called damask was attached to it. It was he who gave the buildings a noble classic look. For those who do not know, damask is a finishing material made in molds with the use of reinforcing fabric and filler. As a rule, burlap was used in the form of a cloth, and mineral powders on an adhesive basis were used as a filler. Forms could give damask any look, from sheets to sculptures. You could fix it with anything from glue to nails. The technology is simple, fast and cheap. In those days, it was used quite often for the construction of buildings with a short service life.
This is the future pavilion of Oregon, and this is himself.
Doesn't it look like anything? These are the same temples that were in large numbers on the Black Sea coast from Crimea to Crete. Historians attribute this typical construction to the ancient Greeks, but apparently, this is not entirely true. If Oregon was a Russian state, most likely such buildings were there. But this is a topic for another story.
You can show a few more photos from the series as it was, as it became.
And the most important building of this exhibition is the Castle of Treasures.
It was named so in honor of the fact that the upper part of its spire was made of transparent minerals, and in the dark it shimmered with all colors, like this:
This is how everyone imagines the exhibition from numerous postcards. Indeed, if you imagine it live, everything looked very beautiful, something like this:
It happens … However, we will return to this a little later, but now we will take another look at the construction process and fix the details.
Construction is going great, only the lack of trenches for engineering networks immediately confuses. As you can see, in the photo you often come across poles with wires, but in the final form, they will simply disappear. In addition, when building such large territories, transformer substations must be included in the master plan. Where are they?
Judging by the power of the illumination of the heavens, such an object consumed considerable electrical power. It is probably even comparable to the power consumed by a modern urban-type settlement. In addition, this exhibition was unique in many ways for a number of reasons.
When designing the exhibition, it was implemented as a completely autonomous education. For the first time in the United States, the San Francisco - New York telephone line was tested on it. The exhibition featured a railway and even an airfield.
In addition, there were a lot of attractions.
Among them there was even such a unique one for that time as an aeroscope.
Anyone could grab some adrenaline by riding such a thing. But that was not all. The pavilions of the exhibition sold such never-before-seen luxury items such as hair dryers and washing machines. And the pavilions themselves were huge. To supply all of this with electricity, you need a pretty decent power plant with a pipe so high that it could be seen from any angle. But she wasn’t even close. What is the secret here? Probably in those same pavilions.
This is really an exhibition pavilion, and it is not invented by an artist.
Was it possible that every tenant in the pavilion provided himself with electricity himself? It may very well be, but the buildings and structures included lighting and fountains, and a host of other loads that did not belong to the tenants. Indeed, a lot of strange things happened with collective lighting at the exhibition.
The overwhelming majority of interior lighting is done contrary to all logic. They are just electrical fixtures hanging on ordinary circuits without any wires. There are not so many of them, but outrageously many.
How could this work? There are even more questions about outdoor lighting.
There are a lot of light bulbs around. Of course, they do not hang on chains, but they are no less mysterious.
What are these strange lanterns, on which you can't even see the lamps? In daylight, these are ordinary metal rings hanging on a pole.
Very mysterious lamps, but these are far from all of a similar category of mysterious.
An impromptu fire standing at the top of these lanterns suggests that these lanterns used an atmospheric electrical resource for their combustion. All similar devices, from pneumatic ovens to architectural details of temples, were marked with this sign.
Such an abundance of lighting fixtures in the absence of wires leads to certain thoughts. How did it all work? Where were the switches for such lights?
Lighting devices with incomprehensible signs were found almost everywhere at the exhibition. But that's not all.
There were two quite unremarkable fountains near the Tower of Plenty. Fountains are like fountains, there were many of them at the exhibition.
It is clearly seen that the column of these fountains is prefabricated, consisting of rings mounted on top of each other. Nothing unusual, a similar solution was used on many buildings and structures. There was only a small inconspicuous detail in these fountains.
At night they shone with unimaginable brightness, even brighter than the most powerful lanterns standing nearby. It is difficult to say how many suites they gave out, but other lighting fixtures looked rather pale.
We can confidently say that they overshadowed everything around. What is it in general if it is clearly visible during the day that their column is not made of translucent material? And one more question - if the most powerful bulbs that were available at that time were crammed into such a column, would it have turned out such brightness? Riddles, only riddles all around.
Well, probably many are already asking the question, what is there so beautiful glows in the background? According to the available information, this was a special illumination, which was carried out by powerful multi-colored light beams. Obviously, at night in the coastal zone the air was filled with moisture particles, and the rays of light, thanks to them, gave a very beautiful effect. What source gave such light? Ironically, there are practically no photographs of this installation. With great difficulty, I managed to find several photos.
As you can see, an entire island is allocated for the spotlights. No power lines go to it, but on the other hand there is a semblance of a temple structure or a lighthouse on it, and suitable poles are visible without wires. The picture is starting to clear up. And what are these pillars?
If you look closely, there are a lot of them on the territory of the exhibition. And at the top of them are not only these incomprehensible stars, but also sculptures. And these pillars are not at all chaotic, but quite orderly.
And these pillars are accompanied by incomprehensible rotundas, of which there are also a lot.
And thus, we get approximately the same scheme of operation of the power system, which is described here, except that due to the large territory, each lamp group uses its own rotunda. And she works for these simplest lanterns, which were never designed to run wires or cables. The switching on and off of the lanterns was carried out in these rotundas. Lanterns for such designs were very simple.
And they shone on the ceiling, obviously so as not to blind the eyes with a bright light. Where did such fantastic brightness come from?
But the release of energy from the atmosphere was obtained not only by the work of some rotundas.
The pavilions themselves were built in such a way that they had their own energy systems and provided their own needs.
Here it is, the same Tower of Plenty close. The lanterns on both her and near her burn well enough. Obviously, for such a power consumption, the scale of the electrical installation was appropriate.
The entire roof is replete with power system details. Apparently, the fountain consumed significant power. And not only the fountain.
And these are the very devices that give those very powerful directed beams. What was rolling and shining there? Now you don't know. But our Tower of Plenty is nothing more than the main element of the energy system of the territory, which is limited by the perimeter of the buildings attached to it. And most likely, this territory was still on the opposite side of it. In this system, everything was thought out to the smallest detail.
And no one would ever have thought that this tower is one of the main elements of the exhibition complex's energy system. As well as the Castle of Treasures, and other towers in this complex. Thanks to them, it all worked.
But what happened to the very fountains with the columns?
Among the exhibits of the exhibition there are such fountains, the column above which is made of glass. Obviously, there were no miracles here, and under certain circumstances, the gas inside this glass bulb began to give light. And among the exhibits there were a lot of such strange artifacts that now seem to be fantastic.
But a new era of globalization has already begun, and along with all this, quite traditional things began to appear at the exhibition.
These things required a qualitatively new leap in sales, and in fact what happened happened.
Having stood for only … one year, our huge exhibition was demolished. In 1916, it was practically gone. At the same time, all such exhibitions all over the United States cease their activities, and also, under strange circumstances, the Luna Parks, which were actually a small variety of these exhibitions, burn down.
And what was happening at the same time on the European continent needs no introduction. Obviously, all these events on a planetary scale were led by a single moderator, which modern history does not want to recognize.
Despite this, the rest of the exhibition buildings were demolished (to be reconstructed) quite recently.
Was it possible to create such wonderful cities so simply? Obviously, yes, and the structures designed for 10 years have stood for almost a hundred years. It happens the same. But we will no longer meet those very design pavilions of that time.
Author: tech_dancer