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Opening ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21, 1892, but the fairgrounds were not actually opened to the public until May 1, 1893. The fair continued until October 30, 1893. In addition to recognizing the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World, the fair also served to show the world that Chicago had risen from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire which had destroyed much of the city in 1871.
The exposition was located in Jackson Park and on the Midway Plaisance on 630 acres (2.5 kmē) in the neighborhoods of Hyde ParkChicago neighborhoods Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House Hyde Park is a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, located seven miles south of the Loop; it is home to the Museum of Science and Industry and the University of Chicago. Hyde Park was founded b and WoodlawnChicago neighborhoods Woodlawn is a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago bounded by Jackson Park to the East, the University of Chicago to the North, Martin Luther King Drive to the West, and, mostly, 67th to the South. Demographics In the 1990 censu. The layout of the fairgrounds was created by Frederick Law Olmstead, and the Beaux-ArtsBeaux Arts was an architectural style that was popular in the early twentieth century. The name comes from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris where this style was practised. The emphasis was towards producing quick sketch schemes involving beautiful drawin architecture of the buildings was under the direction of Daniel BurnhamDaniel Hudson Burnham ( September 4, 1846 June 1, 1912) was born in Henderson, New York and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His parents brought him up under the teachings of the Swedenborgian Church of New Jerusalem, which ingrained in him the strong belief. The Director of the American Academy in Rome, Francis David Millet, directed the painted mural decorations. Indeed, it was a coming-of-age for the arts and architecture of the " American RenaissanceFor the white nationalist magazine, see American Renaissance (magazine). The American Renaissance was the progressive and uplifting sense of self-confidence that Americans had in the period ca 1880 1914, a feeling that the United States was the heir to Gr". Most of the buildings were based on classical architecture, and the area taken up by the fair around the Court of Honor was known as "The White City". Louis SullivanLouis Henry [sometimes Henri] Sullivan ( September 3, 1856 April_14, 1924) was the American architect who is called the "father of modernism" and is considered by many to be the creator of the Prairie School of Architecture. Biography Louis Sullivan was b's polychrome proto-Modern Transportation Building was an outstanding exception, but his opinion was that the "White City" had set back modern American architecture by forty years. McKim, Mead and White designed the Agriculture building. Of the more than 200 buildings erected for the fair, the only one which still stands is the Palace of Fine Arts. From the time the fair closed until 1920, the building housed the Field Columbian Museum (now the relocated Field Museum of Natural History). In 1931 the building re-opened as the Museum of Science and Industry.
The magnificent buildings at the fair were all built to be temporary. Their facades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster and hemp called "staff." The "White City," however, so impressed everyone who saw it that plans were considered to refinish the exteriors in marble or some other material. Sadly, these plans had to be abandoned in July 1894 when fair grounds were destroyed in fire. (The fire occurred at the height of the Pullman Strike; since the strikers set other fires that very week, it is possible the fire was set by disgruntled Pullman employees.)