Distance Eclipsed in the “Big Little Show”: The Australian Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition

If the Australian government’s tardy response to the invitation to exhibit at the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in France, showed “indifference,” the same cannot be said of the lively Advisory Committee that in less than three months devised a thoughtful exhibition in Australia’s first modernist pavilion. On November 23, 1936, the Committee invited Stephenson, Meldrum & Turner’s Sydney office to design a small (233 sqm)Australian pavilion to be “of the simplest character.” Ten days later their circular design was approved and sent to a Paris architectural firm for construction. The firm continued to work with the Advisory Committee, overseeing the design of the interior fit out including lighting and display furniture, and adjacent landscaping. Unlike earlier exhibitions that prioritised primary produce, this Australian pavilion would exemplify artistic merit, simplicity and “the impression of spaciousness.” The visitor was offered “a cycloramic impression of a new nation’s significance in the world of art and industry.” The decision to fuse art and design paid off, with the Visitors’ Book showing numerous testimonials to the intelligence and imagination of the whole. This paper examines how the architectural team and the Advisory Committee worked together to ensure the pavilion would present a coherent and lively sense of contemporary Australian culture to people in distant lands. The paper draws on archival research in France and Australia.