The organization of the International Expositions marked the 19th-century stages of technological and industrial progress, the evolution of artistic and architectural styles, and the affirmation of the major cities as reference points for the world. Every new Exposition was an opportunity to arrange immense new neighborhoods and introduce extraordinary innovations and spectacular installations capable of attracting millions of people.
For the great Universal Exposition of 1900 in particular, you should know that a revolutionary public lighting system and the first underground line were inaugurated, with the wonderful liberty signs designed by Hector Guimard.
FUN FACT: the Universal Exposition of the year 1900 lasted about eight months and had an amazing fifty million visitors. Among them was the great painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, one of the protagonists of the Belle Époque, who was still young but already very ill and was pushed between the pavilions on a wheelchair. Another illustrious visitor was Marcel Proust, the perpetually cold-blooded novelist who wandered among the pavilions wearing two fur-lined coats, one on top of the other.
