# World's Columbian Exposition: Transportation Building \(detail\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [SULLIVAN, Louis Henry]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Colour plate, 224 x 279 mm ## Commentary The World's Columbian Exposition \(the official shortened name for the World's Fair: Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair\) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World in 1492. The centrepiece of the fair, held in Jackson Park, was a large water pool representing the voyage Columbus took to the New World. The layout was, in large part, designed by Daniel Burnham and his colleagues. Many prominent architects designed its 14 "great buildings", which followed Beaux-Arts principles of design, namely neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry, balance, and splendour. Sullivan's polychrome proto-Modern Transportation Building was an outstanding exception to the prevailing style, as he tried to develop an organic American form. The colour plate shows the Golden Arch at Louis Sullivan's Transportation Building. It is taken from "The World's Fair in Water Colours" by Charles S. Graham. ## Related artworks - [Auditorium Building: façade \(detail\)]() - [Auditorium Building: façade]() - [Auditorium Building: general view]() - [Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company Building: entrance]() - [Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company Building]() - [Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company Building]() - [Farmers and Merchants Union Bank]() - [Guaranty Building]() - [Harold C. Bradley House]() - [Home Building Association Bank]() - [Home Building Association Bank]() - [Home Building Association Bank]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()