Flint Hills Discovery Center Opens in Manhattan

from the flint hills to the world's fair i'm kate mcintyre and today on k pr present we visit the world's fair actually several world's fairs from the london exhibition of eighteen fifty one to the nineteen thirty nine world's fair it's a new exhibit that opened this weekend at the nelson atkins museum in kansas city but first we travel to the flint hills to see manhattan's newest tourist attraction the fund health discovery center held its grand opening this weekend celebrating the geography history and culture of the tallgrass prairie the twenty four and a half million dollar facility is the anchor piece of manhattan's south downtown redevelopment project financed in part by kansas star bombs designed to promote tourism so let's head to the flint hills and explore the first thing you notice when you step into the new flint health discovery center is it's noisy

thing as you mentioned that building a map of the tall grass prairie you hear a sound all around the thunderstorms when the songbirds in music discovery center is a feast for the senses fb it's especially on display at our first stop of the day the immersion experience with its special effects include a song by warren singer songwriter kelly time to call it an introductory film doesn't do it justice so without giving away its secrets i asked bob workman the director of the center to give us a teaser well it's called congress very tides and produced by the large productions developed with all three associates in steering committee in the distance and then members of

technical committee participated some to it's about setting you up i think for home one is we're going to experience the discovery center and kind of setting you up both intellectually but also emotionally arm and that's what thomas o'brien is is getting at that emotional level you will see a super high definition in the tree and it is shot in what's called triple high definition and we've been told it is the law finest quality projected in the end at the moment commercially now scientifically they have better imagery but commercially this is as good as it gets at the moment now you know who knows how many months that last but so you're going to see things come to see them but one thing it does is it moves constantly between the macro and the micro ended does that in a very poetic way are often and you'll see a an insurer you know that's probably three or four feet tall at one moment

and then they'll be thrown into this sweeping our deepest or so ago that it plays with our perceptions of places our sense of perception but it's really grounded in some of the essentials of what the flint hills is and that's about on the set there are enough like us that i don't want to give away any of his secrets because it's a really powerful introduction to the discovery center and i think part of its power is its surprise yeah i agree absolutely we enjoyed you know we get everywhere everything from applause so it seemed this day yeah

so with that tall grass prairie insides of time and head out to explore the new flint hills discovery center or two or bad science education specialist lisa store will begin our tour in a room that's a little dark and a little creepy least well where are we we're in the underground forest and one of the reasons a lot of people might think it's creepy because they know so little about what's underground and so this is a really great place for people to go and learn more about the animals that our letter and around the place to live underground and how important they are to our soils so if you look up at the ceiling here what you're seeing on the ceiling is dirt and roots yes yes we have to have read some really put you write any the prairie when you come in you have some

specimens of different types of tall grass but what's really interesting about that is so they're using their specimens but what you really see as the root structure yes you don't you don't see that very often people sea grass they seemed even the different sides in iraq of native grass be looking to see what's above ground and how often do you get a chance to actually see what's underground i was living there you can tell somebody that a particular type of grass can have a tolerance but that and fuel the world that's along route though you're standing next to it it really lets you see how long that really isn't how foreign that can be to their anchoring themselves again water from the soil so for example we're standing by the blue big blue stand and tell me what we're saying yeah we can see just how far down those though that racism goes and that and be able to see that can really show the biggest and has has long roots began that helps a lot in order to be able to get moisture from the soil when that we i have an ad marta drought time

when the top us oil has has dried out already in the biggest since the label find them we simulate find that water's that can survive oh ok let's walk over here this is the part that i was really creeped out by what do we have here we have all of the little bugs a bunch of the little types of bugs and organisms that you can find underneath the ground and what's really neat about it and so you might find it creepy but the supreme court is that when that ended and you can see an exit hear that in one square foot of soil you can find it billions of organisms and that one little so when you lift up were you when you get a handful of soil in your hand you think here's holder year old lost her supporters of their sins living in there and you hold onto in your hand so thus far the underground forest below some of those up so that you can actually see them to several of these are microscopic or that you won't be alone when the embassy you dear i'm your naked eye and they're so this part of the underground forest it enlarges some of those those creatures of those organisms that you can see what they look like if they

were on a larger scale and then there's also an appeal for each one of them that tells a lot more about it why it is important so for example the bacteria that were standing in front of his enlarged to look like really big nasty worms it does look like worms is really big is that but then of course it naturally visa be so those bacteria be so small you would be alysia but when you and large everything does look very different and that we've got something we can pull out and what does this tell me each each of the fallouts is an information tale itself a tussle bit more about each of the organisms agency have been in march so that he cannot only see a particular little bit more about it so that hopefully will be so creepy when you leave azhar still fighting this really creaky many mentos and their sanity than the melodies nerve but the root structure you from the ceiling is such an effective way to get across this part of the whole story yes and it was so excited when i first

walked underneath your eye does think this is a fascinating area i really feel like youre says it is kind of a dark area and it really doesn't look up it makes you feel like you really are walking underground ended and the foothills an ability to you to be able to read all these panels that my tenure at all kinds of the beating was it one of the major parts of the fun whole story is how what this land got here and in this state alone why does the funhouse look like a funhouse well that the real quick version of that is church we have limestone in the middle of the lines in the area and then we have what is called shirt that is is it or makes india layers of limestone and when you get hurt in limestone layers a really hard as like the editor is much stronger much harder than limestone and that as has also harder than the mud rock or sailor or some of those other that's a rap you know you find the area so anyhow that certain the softer layers when the

wind and water come through and the road so softly layers the hard they are the have deterred him they tend to stick around they they last through the erosion of the process a lot longer set so we have these hills but it has to have that those strong harden church layers that caps that say different and even the walls here look like yes we tried to get any can even see if you look you can see there's limestone that you can see the different layers with stimulus a decision driving driving along the road you see the road to it can see the layers underneath and like i really liked about this wall the teensy little surge you can see a player is a church that are in within the limestone layers of a piano waltz it's a really try to make it look like you're looking at a a row can really cut out of the layers of limestone emergency summit on this bag ray that gray stripe that the church that'll be geriatric quite often they can come in many many different colors but already most the

time the church that you find a lot of times is that a blue gray color and light the pianist rhinestones by for me and we talk about the areas of the notes and a lot of people know about spice in tupelo about cattle but one thing that a lot of people don't realize are so important as grazer grasshoppers that there are about a hundred difference b cs of grasshoppers and kansas and that there are over forty of them on the very alone so although the bison is individually a much larger grazer overall we talk about numbers next talk about consumption town for found the grasshoppers consume as much as the bison do and maybe even more serves one one aspect a lot of people don't realize how important these grasshoppers are typically everything's a bison as they're that raises these grasshoppers are

still pouring in a big part of that so what exactly do the razors whether they be grasshoppers or bison and cattle what's their home again making the prairie prairie well part of it is this siege food chain they're all part of the food chain at where they're being something else to be eaten by something else like he was at the mike some of the larger razors but they also help with things like there are some plans that if they graze on that actually helps their how it helps them to grow it actually stimulates the growth so i can help actually help some plans to grow by being fraser sounds kind of backwards but it helps and also things like bison wall owes it which is when they leave role in them in the mud but we have a picture of year when that the role and then the mother in the dirt on the ground they make little impressions and those depressions can it kind of makes an old minnie habitats of their own for some smaller bugs in or if it's big enough for some water to cool it like that might be a place where some and regrets or amphibians might even be able to every year some like that and then also things like their

excrement that come back and help to fertilize the area and then help to stimulate growth which helped themselves as well as anyone and in keeping with that story we have a missile by the dropping every year we do we have a weak and touch it and don't worry it's not friendship you really can see without that way since it was a column were some people that we cannot and actually see what that might look like a close when school groups come in are any tiny group comes in for an educational program what do you take away from her i hope that the first thing that they think is wild and i hope that when they leave they'll realize that the finals are so much more than grass there's so much more so many people that they don't know the area think that it's just it's flat and it's a grassy and it's boring and as soon as you take the time to stop on seventy five miles an hour and you look a little bit closer you can see the beautiful wild life the amazing plants animals that we have here and howl

beautiful and wonderful of an ecosystem that nearly half years i really hope the people go away thinking that there really is more the fund health in distress go away and wanting get out and have fun health absolutely and that's one thing that we have been in our lobby here we have agave a kiosk that in the hopes that that we do you inspire people to want to learn more and want to visit other areas so the place in the area we need to visit the really key us in a lobby and they can learn more about the different places they can visit so they can learn more about the different aspects of the floods it really brings out all the great things about the area together in one place so they all have to go out and find the different aspects of it in one place you could see this all the cool stuff that we have here and this is why this as eerie as great answers we need to be able to find all that one area yeah that's why i love the flint hills on one place so my heroes that was lisa stuart science education specialist at the new flint hills discovery center in manhattan will continue our to work in just a minute but

first i caught up with manhattan's mayor jim sharon is or where people live it gives them a sense of place i hope by the way i'm a professor of history at stake and irony and kansas historian here and i do work on the grasslands and our voice synthesized to my students acquiring a sense of place it is amazing to me especially my cancer sisters it's a like a man to my classes and i don't know where they live they don't know the ecology they don't know the history they don't even know much about that city of manhattan itself and size than a whole semester trying to get that across to that but that's what this discovery center to us as an educational facility that lets people think about understand and feel what the flint hills this and only come here way with what i hope is entirely

different appreciation for the live as a history professor what part of this do you find the most interesting to explore i mean there's a question that they're so interesting question for me because i'm an environmental historian so that the whole facility this is just that one part of that because all of that comes together for me and not only me information that is displayed in the facility but the design of the building itself even the stonework on the outside of the building imitates thirty am limestone layers center found in the foothills the architects did that purposefully so the building itself is a representation of the clintons we're standing fairly close to the area where the fishes video of the burning of the prairie talk to me about that answer how this captures that phenomenon the burning other of the tallgrass prairie is a very important for trading the tall grass prairie in the first place

what a number of us are scholars of the grassland succumbed to understand is that the fire burning practices of indian peoples shaped the landscape they they weren't simply an active the occupants of the land rather they were land managers and people don't think about indian peoples playing that role and actively shaping an ecosystem so what you have in the creation of the tall grass prairie surgery lost landscape and as though the work of human beings interacting with their surroundings the plants the animals and all that in the climate all of those things coming together to shape what we knew as the treeless and tall grass prairies if you look at some of the photographs from let's say alexander gardner's photographs of kansas in the eighteen sixty seats photograph the hoke county has a specific route and at sixty seven and the photographs and he has a place a psych junction

city manhattan or add a lane so line the ellsworth a completely treeless landscape well that was purposeful and it was by design and management practices over not notches hundreds of years thousands of years and so that's what people saw how your american settlers an average american settlers were like you know the south that's what they sell when they came out here and so the trees grow up here and how we have to just look in any city and there are covered by trees even garners photographs atop mount ormerod overlooking port city making sixty seven that was firstly a treeless landscape as the sawmill so that that relationship between human beings and their culture their own expectations for a livelihood and so forth and there were there are management practices of the land what will shape that subculture becomes an

active force in shaping an ecosystem ever get as much soul as rainfall are um janitors and soil conditions or anything else may actually pretty ambitious project for its high noon when a lot of times towns are struggling how has this been a way to revitalize manhattan or figured into aggressive panhandler it was a leap of faith from abroad two thousand homeland so this first started coming together and there's folks in this community been working together at him teams all throughout the state to try to bring about a different vision for the community and down this is like all those comic community divisions there's a number of different ways of saying things and so bringing all those different ways the same things together to achieve one common goal

hasn't always been easy to do that but there's been a good perseverance in an elvis and time and the resource i think are being shown in terms of this facility are our new conference center on what has been achieved on the north end so we're very pleased that the vision this is actually creating the reality that we all hope for congratulations it's a beautiful facility and manhattan as much to be proud of what i believe we do end of the novel are the folks in this area and say come here and see what we have to offer that was ginger row mayor of the city of manhattan i'm kate mcintyre if you're just joining us were visiting the new bill's discovery center in manhattan we continue our tour with a travesty and education specialist for the history and culture of the section that

we're in right now is not so much about the flint hills themselves as much as the people and some of the history that was going on around the farmhouse and a lot of those plays off of things were going on the national scene such as louisiana purchase or kansas nebraska act things like that that took place in washington that really the ramifications of those of those acts of those government activities really influence the foothills specifically because unrest at camps of the physical activity organized and the people moved into the territory decide what about free status which they are investments to pay and so what that set the stage for work new englanders mostly moving here to establish three pounds i would vote for a free state and people working away from missouri settling here on furniture that the expansion of slavery in advance is very pretty place this one

on the nosebleed kansas and our famous for american history as like a civil war that took place before the civil war began but at sixty one cases of becoming free state and so it wasn't that the real american support itself in some of those ways it had thought legions is we need to fight in the war or canceled what does that have to do with her friends you know what i tell my kid manhattan for instance was actually established as little street how's it could not answer the so his family and friends moved here all the same time they establish manhattan itself as a freak out lawrence to sell shares of recount i am and many other communities throughout the flint hills all became free towns to stop the expansion of slavery ended kansas on besides the actually they were together just wanted the senate to vote you had spots in this part of the flint hills specifically over by one the town of one c which reports the underground railroad so the russia helping smuggle slaves out of misery into the flint hills as a place to hide this was quest for the civil

war began by the end of the civil war slavery had ended completely corrupt country and at that point many ex slaves throughout the south in his picture of one right here that decided to leave the south and move into kansas gazette heard how friendly the people when teams were to the slaves a lot of that set up accounts or moved into our establish towns as accessories like slaves who wanted to come to kansas has promised land and started anew so a lot of the naked a lot of them moved on elsewhere was a mostly still existed travis we're standing in front of a trunk and that's part of the health discovery center what's it here well not every artifact in here is an artifact that many of them are gorgeous modern lines but they're all meant to represent the people who moved into flint hills most of the european settlers who emigrated from europe we came to the united

states and found out there was going to be heading out west and i'm from for marilyn monroe when you were willing to work hard enough they can establish a new life so what kind of things do we have any clear what this and tools stone masons reviews and getting through that they were wrong with them some books on i guess in some money that's not all that's authentic but some of the candidates have pennies in their from the teens seventies and eighties that are real allison weiss open their arms to be some snake oil on the quilt itself was a major league and seventies but the patter the dough wet hearing pattern that you see there was developed while woman who immigrated to the flint hills leaping seventies and she developed that pattern has become more famous for patterns among supporters say let's walk over here a little bed with that over here on the traits that yeah i just i'm all traces of what the spill's represent as well trained have popped up anywhere

throughout the flint hills towns like manhattan for instance started off they were doing pretty well for himself what really made it really set with that they were in a row was with another roar of assent to come through here the pacific railroad act at sixty to one of many pieces of legislation that president abraham lincoln was able to pass during the civil war are allowed for the railroad be given large huge vast areas of land by the federal government in exchange for every mile of railroad that they've built as they started doing that they were able to sell the land back to ranchers to farmers and that's how they made their money by building railroad know where they chose to go that if those towns did very well manhattan's wodehouse they went through manhattan a duel right other towns as the roar came and they started off ok if the railroad stop show up that town my dad died very quickly the roar of was like blood you it said what about people came there were shops that were not anything tamer went from that town and and

this represents one of the towns in the foothills one of many towns that he could be in town from eating seventies and at least up until the twentieth century that i am it would have been a train stop somewhere throughout the foothills end over in this section you see the swiss represent a ranch and so not only did that but those trains go through i'll go straight past they also went through all those branches and part of the flint hills sometimes stopping certificate low cattle were taken out east will be sold at a high price at least on keynes's be disgusted at the state of the country and that's what we see was like in the city things for party pretty ephemeral in this but i get the feeling that in the wholesome whole story that you were probably more interested in the people and the history of the area rather than maybe their geography itself well the point of the building one of the things i think is fascinating is that week we talk about the beginning of the four engine islands that

make up the flint hills fire water when an earth and then what we don't say that we expect everyone to understand my family leave here is the fifth element that shaped the foothills for humans that we human beings are the fifth element the thing that went into to create in the flint hills like we see today on mother nature had billions of years to do what she wanted to do oh we've got a couple hundred years police european settlers out a couple hundred years to shape the way they wanted it and we've made a huge impact sometimes good not always but we can be proud of what things we don't have this e involved in this museum has it changed the way you think about kansas and the fun house or the missouri board but i moved out there with the army earlier in my life and i stayed because i liked it and now that i work here i really like it one things we say we want to motivate people would provoke

people to go on the foothills we don't want people to just come in manhattan and just a manhattan we want the midwest experience the flint hills we want to come here as the first stop of many stops there and in the foothills around and i personally feel like every day i leave work have learned about a new place i learned something new about a place early new and a lot of these i can't help but dried out there you'll see that spot to understand a little bit more it's doing its job recently and yes i guess i'm warning in flint hills that's travis young education specialist for history and culture at the french health discovery center history culture geography plants animals it's all at the funhouse discovery center which had its grand opening this weekend but there's also something poor the little visitor's i met up with kristin brighton on the second floor of the center this area was actually am turning children about for ages for decades

certainly having a successful three year olds and i think children older natalie's the first couple times or another but it's really targeting that very early elementary upper preschool age group and we have an entity that's been one of favorites in and on the am an idea born from the beginning which is to spray pipe organ which uses different sounds of the prairie and angela can actually print together and make music with them and everything from that different animal sounds of insects carries thunderstorms and so forth and they can layer them into making ribbons and different types of patterns in music let's walk over and give that a try i haven't actually played more in theory meet aviv i'm sorry a lot of my

mom's encourage voters is really cool so it was deathly designed so i'm like mother's again china to countering weakness not be the naked secure in having for the concern i don't play anything come over and over again that's what the memberships are so great because there's another zero child can come over and over as much as they want so if your kids do not carry out their special sneak preview last weekend for city manhattan employees and people who are involved it's my kids that happened my older and my kids are both in school my son's at my daughters five and i think the first time anyone comes because it's gonna run around in unsinkable sensory overload their summit and i had fun with the prairie pipe organ is dead definitely it's been evolving the second floor of the flint hills discovery center also contains a special exhibit on science it's part of a national science foundation that score project that stands for experimental program to stimulate competitive research i met up with john

harrington professor of geography at kansas state university who walked me through the energy exhibit on display so here's one related to farms gives the official title is a bio fuels and climate change and one of the big things we're concerned about is that as prices for corn or other biofuels fluctuate at the market what will individual and owners do in terms of a decision maybe change their current crop rotation more fertilizer and seed into corn and on an annual basis rather than a crop rotation what's happening in terms of the economy of kansas and perhaps even in the long term we'll let me in terms of perhaps a runoff streams or depletion of groundwater resources and so these are not a simple question for regular complexity and thousands of a question of trying to address what you hope the average

visitor to the discovery center gets out of this particular portion of the debate i hope they get a little bit of an idea that there are federal funds they are based on their taxes they're actually doing good stuff or cancers but the other thing that i'm a teacher i want them to get curious i wanna ask additional questions answered it would be really neat if if somebody said i saw that climate exhibit there at the discovery so tell me a little bit more about what's going on that would be wonderful for me the flint hills discovery center was designed by a boston architect bernard johnson incorporated and built by the county board and construction of kansas city construction of the twenty four and a half million dollar facility began in july two thousand nine is installing the exhibits began in october two thousand eleven based on the themes earth wind fire and water it so it's a pretty fundamental approach because i think jay lifton says it very eloquently in the nfl that you know the seasons of

wells are very different it's death fire reverse gross and then death again when health discovery center director bob workman so the role of the water that form to this earth obvious and as the terror of this the end of the fire which is a life sustaining aspect of nature fire management is fire in the foothills littered with with thunderstorms obviously and that man learned how to use that to manage the foothills and eight people's first and then and then course now modern man and i'm so you know having a kind of taking this to some of its most basic elements as a foundation i think is the best approach to grounding people into what this ecosystem is i like to point to the fact that plowing the prairie created the breadbasket

and and we would have this last remaining stand years arguments as to you know what exactly what size it is but you know roughly four percent is is intact as the foothills and essentials we have it because of geology but also because of the ranching heritage we found a girl you know our ancestors and age and sixties they were they were grazing cattle on this and that was certainly an heiress where rancher raises grass and uses is beefed up artist at his cattle to harvest and he says he makes his living on the by product but his attention has to be on its grass end and that's a different way of thinking about this whole thing and hurt and it is true you know that the prairie is a very complex ecosystem and how he's managed to ski so you know with all the great research going into cancer the issues we face moving forward with with the food resources with climate you know we're in the middle of something really important here i see

the discovery center his role as being a place for the average person can get an understanding of that complexity or not a book on the wall by any stretch of imagination but i think you can you can attest to that but we give that we give the overview story and we i think helped people understand that this is an important place that just because we you know don't worry we will drive for it you know it's the usual thing we see our oyster landscape your car windows and what we want people to get a better understanding of knowledge about it and then go experience at that firsthand and i think you've seen today some of the various techniques we use in the exhibit to inspire people to get out into the into the prairie itself and the ultimate goal is custodian ship of the ecosystem so you know we we want to spread the word but it's to be sure and be better stewards it's it's about making sure that we still have this

important landmass a hundred years from now one of the things that i thought was perhaps most interesting to me going through the discovery center was that the exhibits are not just about the grass or or plants or animals there's a lot about human history and how we've affected the fund health as well one common is that we're very unusual there are only a handful of institutions in america that combine science and cultural history and that's what we do here and of this one ecosystem is mantz played a very important role in in both the stress that been put on this ecosystem as well as protecting ecosystem we our goal is to give the facts and then i think you know as in our voices of the flint hills section we also didn't provide a lot of

first person narrative about a number of issues and at everything from the arts and an inspiration of the desperate to fire and when there are issues that we face on daily basis and so it's about crowning the science in their own cultural history here and then making our visitor aware that this is an ongoing process and the debt you know the more educated they can be even better and they can be in making their thoughts known that their wishes known as we face challenges in moving forward and i'm very proud of manhattan for doing this i think it's very progressive i think that it will continue to build the importance of agriculture in them in the economic base of his community endured any educational basically statement going into world leader in agriculture and so we need a place like this where we are we people

coming from all over the world all the time hear people don't realize that they're constantly coming here from all over the world for for resources that are available in this community and fort riley and now we've got a place that we can share with others and they can take back an end and i've learned something and that can grow from some of it is very gratifying we should be really proud of this institution it's beautiful facility an incredible exhibits a congratulation thank you thank you so much i really appreciated its it's been that you know we have all the ingredients except the people you know and lionel and we just the last month than talk because they're down down the last little dance and everything had to be perfect and now today is one of those days of celebration because we did hit the sweet spot and we're very excited i think it kansas public radio has two tickets to the new flint health discovery center to give away if you'd like a chance to win those tickets go to our website k pr back hey you that edu and click on ticket giveaway is on

the left hand side of your screen with that we leave manhattan and the fund health and travel one hundred twenty miles east and a century back in time our next stop is the nelson atkins museum in kansas city which just opened a new exhibit called inventing the modern world world's fairs from eighteen fifty one to nineteen thirty nine i had a chance to visit with the exhibit's curator katherine fuller earlier this week the reserve for world's fairs or they were really marketing a bounce and so they were to promote the goods of manufacturers and designers to show the latest and the best and the most are fashionable styles and so they really marketing and for our global audience so they start an eighteen fifty one in london which is the first world's fair i will say that they do change in nineteen thirty nine at the new york world's fair it starts being more about ideas and they're still world's fairs today and there idea driven not object driven so that's why our cut up date as nineteen thirty nine so that's why we're looking at eighteen

fifty one to nineteen thirty nine because that was the golden age of world's fairs and also about the products that were displayed at them so why was the nelson atkins interested because we started x's products starts before the nelson atkins i've been working on a competing years and it is a when i was in minneapolis where this project started it was about we start looking at things and realizing that they had a world's fair proper nouns or at the history but that usually meant that they were the epitome of style of technological achievement new materials and we've just realize that that would make a really interesting exhibition and so many years passed and i still have this idea entered collecting the ideas and images and things like that still searching out actually collecting them for the museums that i worked for including enough seconds end in two thousand eight we went into partnership to call organize the exhibition with the carnegie museum of art in pittsburgh and so that's how this came to fruition but even since i arrived here ten years ago we then bridges and works of art that have world's fair

histories so that we could include them in the exhibition but they're also and great works of art that can be incorporated into the permanent collection galleries once the exhibition is over i'm assuming that a number of the items on display are actually on loan from elsewhere out well it was all over europe we could've found objects in australia in japan but some of the limitations of the budgets are that the objects are from europe and basically the eastern united states and they were in museums in the nineteenth century for instance that on a number of germany the design museum but seventeen hundred and fifty works from the piano eighteen seventy three exhibition so that there was a great number of works and then just another example is that danish design museum in copenhagen what probably about two hundred french works from the paris nineteen hundred exhibition to world's fairs were known by museums especially design museums that had applied arts schools to

have great works of art at and that would be an both incredible examples of technology and new styles but also good teaching because education was another component of world's fairs it was education for the manufacturers and for designers but it was also to educate the public and it was about five breen of good taste and of course an educated consumer is a better consumer and so there was and this is the beginning of the year of the consumer driven economy and so the world's fairs are just a component of that so world's fair is less this was the rise of the department store before you went to the carpenter then you'd go to the upholstered now you had in the department stores you have everything together in addition it's also the world where because of wood pulp paper meant that more people could see more there were more journals there were more literally sales catalogs and also it was in the eighteen fifties and cromwell a biography was

introduced them and you have a color prints that easily could be so people can see works of art org objects in color which again help to promote their sales so all of this came together in the ear of the world's fairs and to bring the consumer and marketing of all these amazing objects into the forefront so it created a politically iran desire for consumption which of course was delivered today we're going to look at some of those items in just a minute but before we do so do you have any particular favorite world's fairs are there any of those sites in particular that you think really did right well the sites are another aspect that's quite interesting in the exhibition actually doesn't really focus on the sites because the pay billions are the buildings we're always intended to be temporary and very cute few of them anywhere still existed and there some and seven sisko course the most emblematic of them as the eiffel tower in paris from the paris at navy nine exhibition

that was actually hate it when it was first built but somehow manage to survive and to nineteen hundred and now it's a beloved landmark on new york still has from nineteen thirty nine actually also from sight in nineteen nineteen thirty nine as wells nineteen sixty four there still pavilion so they're out there nashville as the parthenon so they're different buildings of by a large they were temporary and in terms of my favorite beer my favorite beer is the parasite in sixty seven because it was when architecture for the pharaoh's changed and it went from one building into a building actually that had concentric vocals and also the first time that they were national pavilions and that's a very important component to nationalism which is another part of art exhibition and finally was also an eighteen sixty seven paris exhibition was the first time the japanese exhibit it as a nation and so that really and bear the opening of direct trade with china and japan was incredibly influential on objects but especially at

world's fairs and you see the big western european and american manufacturers looking to japan for new styles new ideas about technology or techniques but you also see the japanese catering to their new western markets and that's a really fascinating thing so what'd they think this carousel that's quote unquote japanese and that that dialogue which is not one way that multiple ways back and forth is fascinating and that's one of the joys of looking at these objects as are deconstructing them i'm thinking well part of that's chinese in part of its japanese but part of it's also european so as i say these are the world's fairs are the after the world series there's no purity of style and so there's all this and there wasn't say oh we have to be pure in style because they were trying to make things that were new so they could sell one minute they say that the bottom line is these are sales events and let's put it like this is japanese vibes it's quite tall it's about two feet tall

and it is very simple informants are the tall necktie shoulders in than tapering down to the base and what i love about it is seems very japanese in its on decoration because it shows to samurai that are fighting amongst the blossoming cherry trees in this vivid pinks and purples and a riot thornton occur to share a scene and around the scene are dragons brought their comical dragons they're not fierce at all one of them is orange and one of them is blue and when we look at the pattern is really densely apply there's not a lot of open space there's hardly any white porcelain of the buzz but back at that pattern is so dense it and that is a more on european or american and vision of what would be a fashionable or intake so when we look at the us it is the japanese looking at what europeans and americans wanted in japanese art so it's it's already through the prison twice for murder and we look at i

talked about the pinks in the purples that is because it's completely western technology it's because a german comcast went to japan in the eighteen sixties and taught the japanese potter's chemical laced technology is completely revolutionize the palette for the japanese it's so you see european technology going to japan and then we see an object that is catering to western tastes not japanese taste so again a purely as a salesman to sell this as well and also what we can do so it's this great showing up technology cross cultural influences and this are looking at historical or nationalistic whisper semi telegraphed everybody there japanese they don't have them in other countries so it was a nationalistic symbol as well but the key word for the exhibit

has now that the wire to squeeze into one two foot tall yes it is it's a very and not every object in this exhibition tells multiple stories like that and so i hope that people when they come and visit the exhibition take the time to really look at and to think about our ballot that decoration what's really sent alright because it usually turns out there's some kind of complexity in there that maybe isn't evidence so if we have one thing it is not only to create what world's fairs was but also to have people serve stop was the code the works of art let's go to something else so now we're in the art nouveau section so about nineteen hundred art nouveau is a style really based on nature but it also takes in the japanese imports organic japanese influence is really strong in this period so here we have a brooch which doesn't almost look like a brooch as it's so large it's about six inches tall and has a beautiful blooming

iran's in montana sapphires so they are very deep and was midnight blue and one of the things the tiffany and company in a new york firm was trying to do was to showcase the fact that america now the united states had minerals that were just as important as minerals that came from burma org from other places so we had made of thing so again very nationalistic and that but the whole idea of the sap the sapphire a corsage ornament or wrote of a fire is this isn't realistic view of nature rendered in precious materials so later on as we've looked into the early twentieth century will see that nature becomes more abstract it and becomes less realistic to one of the other things that we have with this object is that when you come to the exhibition you can virtually try it on we have three sided mirrors a little vials of the jury and so your reflection

will be wearing masks or dennis that interactive component there were also interested in was that interactive component also important for people who actually attended the world's fairs yes the interactive was very important it was a takeaway will be new in world's fair says waving gauging i mean i went to a world's i wanted to world's fairs when i was a child and that's part of what i remember the talking robot and then people would ask you questions are the things that you could touch or handle and this idea is especially when watching that compresses he's so i still my sinclair dinosaur from the ninth new york nineteen sixty four fair at the smell of that spirit of plastic would be wafting in here i would be transported back to the bear but it was that tangible and really a lot of people have memories that fear foods and so that also ties into people was are you gonna belgian waffles because they remember belgian waffles from terrorism so all of that i think really ties into creating this answer that we remember if you get if you've been to a state fair you remember those different

sights and smells and the things you get to try and that's the way a world's fair stores as well you know it's funny that you say that because i went to the world's fair up in vancouver several years ago and my strongest memories from that is eating a reindeer burger and also at one point one of the pavilions that there is a young man who was grinding our policy rather than rubies and he passed one to me for me to hold air supply only held it for you know maybe five seconds that that stuck with me years later now and days these process alive reason i went to the nineteen sixty four other words i grew up in new york city and so everybody were and was my father had a client who had a west virginia glassblowing business and so they were italian glassblowers who worked with this company who made little and glass animals and so you got to watch the artist make it and then you get

packers buy one maybe sometimes they were given away don't remember but so again that's or as you say it's are they handling this very tactile very participatory and they engaged all your senses new saw different sites you saw things that seemed foreign or exotic or new to you you tasted different foods you on you know for different things he's not depend so at all those sciences which were engaged parent there's seth kaplan well you have any food here rozelle court as having a fear of food or if i should say food inspired by the different nations of the fares and actually we now in our creative cafe in it in addition to having interactions where you can make your own worlds where posters they were also be fear foods i couldn't plenty and remember some of the other ones that were at versailles you can eat your foods while you're here to do it in twenty four for fruits and yes it is which one of them well

this is up for paneled screen so what we see is for particle panels on the way that black lacquer frames and with some designs would almost look like snowflakes on the bottom panels but what we're seeing as a turbulent see call the morning saying and the screen was shown in san francisco in nineteen fifteen and again it's japanese seems to be a theme isn't and so what we're seeing here is this very turbulent seem we have no real idea about horizon line we had no sense of perspective we had no sense of narrative we don't know for on up but we don't know for all not sure we don't know where we are and that shows the influence of especially european and impressionist art so again remember i was saying that the that influences go back and forth so the japanese were looking at european especially european painting and taking that and again to catering to the market but what is amazing about the screening visitors all

embroidery it's two hundred and fifty shades of going from a very light silver to a dark dark blue and as we move these long states is as we move the sea seems to be moving because the iridescent surface of the silk and that i'm reflective ad from the lights next it shifted and so we feel even more like corn and very active environment this was a type of work that the japanese started showing at least in nineteen oh four but they were very popular but most of them weren't more narrow and more traditionally japanese and subject matter so to have something like this it's it's the key word in the allentown art museum and the fact that they are lending it to the exhibition especially the entire toured the exhibition is really remarkable and it shows is are the crab the level of and competence in our museums that are participating with us and lending objects to this exhibition shows you that the quality that they know what we're showing katherine thank you so much really

inventing the modern world decorative arts at the world's fairs opens this weekend at the nelson atkins museum in kansas city it will remain on display until august nineteen when it will travel to pittsburgh the war lens and charlotte north carolina for more information visit the museum's website debuted debut debbie dai nelson i said adkins that oh archie i hope you've enjoyed this trip to the world's fair and to the brand new flat howls discovery center just a reminder kansas public radio has two tickets to the finals discovery center to give away if you'd like a chance to win those tickets visit our website k pr back hey you that edu and click on ticket giveaway is on the left hand side of your screen i'm kate mcintyre k pr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas

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