Caplan Art of Unused Concepts
Produced in advance of most fair materials (the back page bears a 1973 copyright), the Caplan art lithograph booklet illustrates some aspects of the fair that would change or disappear by the time of the actual event.
This booklet came out after the exterior design of the U.S. Pavilion had changed to the form we know today, but the interior would still undergo major revisions. This art shows the garden exhibit that was originally planned for inside the U.S. pavilion.
The only non-U.S. nations mentioned in this booklet as participating in Expo ‘74 are Taiwan, Canada, the USSR, and Japan. Some aspects of the art hint at other national participants that may have been hoped for but were never realized, such as the Czechoslovakian flag in the flag display or the sombrero-wearing, presumably Mexican guitar player who appears on multiple pages. Although their nations did not participate officially, Mexico was represented through Plaza Mexicana and many Czechoslovakian artists contributed to the fair, notably the Kinoautomat Decision Cinema and the shadow puppets in the Iran Pavilion.
The art of this booklet depicted the high-soaring version of the fairground gondolas that was typical of this era of Expo '74 design. While the real fair would have two separate "sky ride" attractions - the enclosed blue gondola cars that went over the falls and the open chairs of the A&W Sky Float that went over the fairgrounds - early concept art often showed one continuous enclosed gondola system traveling across the entire length of the fairgrounds as well as over the falls. In this art, the cars are typically red or multicolored and are traveling at least as high as the top of the clock tower. The actual Sky Float was much closer to the ground.
Other than the color of the cars, the “Ride Over The Falls” section of the gondolas is a reasonably accurate representation of what was eventually present at the fair. While the U.S. Pavilion would ultimately become the legacy structure of Expo ‘74, this booklet emphasizes the gondola ride over the falls as the fair’s “center of climactic wonder.”
Note that this depiction of the Washington State Pavilion has stairs offset from the final build, a broad wooden bridge, and an in-river fountain at approximately the place where the floating stage would be constructed. The in-river fountain, despite never being built, appears in a truly surprising amount of depictions of this pavilion thanks to the influence of the Caplan art.
An early concept for the Bell Telephone Systems Pavilion was circular and had yellow spokes radiating across a white dome (or white spokes across a yellow dome in some versions). Like the in-river fountain, this nonexistent element of the fair had surprising longevity in visual depictions.
