University of Virginia Library

THE MANUFACTURES AND LIBERAL ARTS BUILDING.

Not only is this the mammoth of the Exposition, but it is the largest exposition building ever erected. It covers thirty and one-half acres, and with its galleries contains forty acres of floor space. Its position in the grounds is most conspicuous of all the buildings, facing as it does the lake, with only lawns and promenades between, and standing at an angle with the lagoon and main basin. Within this building, corresponding to the "Main Building" of the Philadelphia Exposition, the general exhibit of manufactured goods is displayed. On the ground floor, "Columbia Avenue," fifty feet wide, extends through the great building's entire length, and an avenue of corresponding width crosses it at right angles at the center. From the floor thirty grand staircases, each with twelve feet flights, rise to the main gallery which extends around the four sides of the interior, with a uniform width of fifty feet. From it project eighty-six lesser galleries, twelve feet wide, where visitors may rest and survey the vast array of exhibits and the busy scene below. The exterior of the building is covered with "staff," made to represent marble, and has very elaborate ornamentations. The main roof of iron and glass, rises one hundred and fifty feet above the ground and arches an area of 1,400x385 feet. There are four grand entrances, designed as triumphal arches, each forty feet wide and eighty feet high, each surmounted by sculptured eagles, eighteen feet high.

The whole effect of this building is a structure of magnificent proportions, a long array of colonades and arches, where every severe line is softened into harmony by tasteful ornamentation.