After World War I, fairs never regained the cultural status they had enjoyed before the war. Fewer were held, and many of them were not artistically or commercially successful. With improved transportation and communication networks, fairs had less to offer people who could now see movies or hear radio programs about foreign lands or even travel relatively easily to visit them firsthand. Nonetheless, there were expositions worthy of note during this time. The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925, made the architectural and design style known as Art Deco highly popular for the next 15 years. The British Empire Exhibition in Wembley (1924–25), the Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris (1931), and the Exposition Universelle et Internationale in Brussels (1935) showcased the overseas empires of these three countries at a time when rumblings of independence were just beginning to be heard from their colonies.
Two American expositions of the 1930s deserve special mention. The Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago (1933–34) and the New York World’s Fair (1939–40) were both exciting examples of Art Deco architecture and fairs designed to take fairgoers’ minds off the Great Depression by suggesting the wonderful future that awaited them once the hard times were over. While the hopefulness of the New York World’s Fair was cut short by the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the iconic Trylon and Perisphere structures from that fair remain fixtures in popular culture that are associated with happier times.
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