Inviting, Opposed, Lost

The 1937 World Fair in Paris was supposed to be a celebration of art and science but instead became a place of opposing ideologies. As the exhibition was plagued by delayes, the only two pavilions that were completed on time for the opening were Boris Iofan's Soviet Pavilion and Albert Speer's German Pavilion, which were sited directly across from one another (a precursor of things to come 3 years later). Picasso's painting 'Guernica' was also displayed in the Spanish Pavilion as an anti-war piece protesting the innocent lives lost in the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish civil war.