AMAZING ATTRACTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1938, Page 4

AMAZING ATTRACTION

THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. ENORMOUS SPHERE AT FAIR. A sphere 200 ft in diameter—the largest ever designed will be one of the most striking features at the New York World’s Fair next year. Inside the sphere 8000 people an hour will be able to see the “world„of tomorrow” from a “magic carpet.” Many architectural and engineering problems had to be surmounted in constructing the sphere. The great difficulty lay in the fact that it had to remain an empty shell, containing no struts or girders. Visitors will enter it on one of the largest escalators in the world. At the top of this they will be transferred to one of two moving platforms travelling in opposite directions. From these they will gaze into the interior of the sphere, the effect being as though they were suspended in space. PERFECT TRAFFIC. Above will be representations of the heavens and firmament. Below will be the “City of .Tomorrow Morning— Democracity.’ ” This will not be some dream city of the distant future. It will'embody only material and devices which are available now. A “perfect traffic system,” complete green belt, and decentralised factory centres will be shown. The work of leading American and European architects and town-planners has been studied by the designer. The entire show will last six minutes. Every second of time has been worked out so that music, lighting, and projection can be faultlessly synchronised. This was done by means of a chart listing each of the 360 seconds. Acoustic engineers experimented for months to find the right echo-deaden-ing material with which to cover the interior of the sphere. Now the echo, which threatened to spoil a symphonic poem sung by 1000 voices, has been eliminated. LIVING' MURAL. The show ends with a “living mural.” Ten groups of 100 figures each, representing miners, factory workers, engineers, artists and others, appear in the heavens, projected from cinema machines, and extend so as to encircle the entire sphere, singing an anthem in unison. The designer of the exhibit, MiHenry Dreyfuss, went for long aeroplane flights to see what the earth looked like from far above. The spectators’ platforms have been placed to give the illusion of being.7oooft above the “City of To-morrow.” Visitors will be carried about inside the exhibition grounds in 100 streamlined buses, the largest motor passenger vehicles in existence.