2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 103It features two curved wings, these being retained from the Palais du
Trocadéro, which the Palais de Chaillot’s creators adorned with classi-
cal columns. These two colonnades are linked by a vast terrace, that is,
the Esplandade du Trocadéro, from the vantage point of which one can
enjoy a panoramic view extending across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower
and beyond that to the Champs de Mars. On either side of this terrace,
two monumental staircases lead down to the Jardins du Trocadéro, the
central axis of which features decorative ponds and ornamental foun-
tains. Many of the forty-four national pavilions erected for the purpose
of the exposition, were located in these gardens, among them being
the German pavilion. Designed by the Reich’s chief architect Albert
Speer along neoclassical lines, the German pavilion was approximately
152 metres in height and had a bronze imperial eagle perched on the
edge of the roof of its main façade, its claws gripping a wreath framing a
swastika.^67
The German pavilion communicated emphatically the power of
the Reich and it was in an excellent position to do so: it was located at
the far end of the Jardins du Trocadéro near to the right bank of the
Seine. In a decision that some suggest was motivated by the desire to
orchestrate a ‘peaceful encounter of ideological enemies,’ the organ-
isers placed the German pavilion and the pavilion of the USSR directly
opposite each other.^68 Shorter in height than the German pavilion, the
pavilion of the USSR, which was strictly modernist in style, compensated
for the difference by means of the two colossal sculptures. These sculp-
tures, which were created by Vera Mukhina, a former pupil of Bourdelle,
were planted on the roof of the pavilion. Defiantly facing the pavilion
(^67) Chandler, ‘Total Disorder,’ in Confrontation: The Exposition internationale des arts et
des techniques dans la vie moderne (1937).
(^68) Andreas Fickers, ‘Presenting the “Window on the World” to the World, Competing
Narratives of the Presentation of Television at the World’s Fairs in Paris (1937) and New
York (1939),’ Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 28, no. 3 (2008): 291–310,
293, 300–01. In a demonstration of German technical prowess, a camera located on the
roof of the German Pavilion transmitted live footage of the exposition which could be
viewed in a ‘movie theatre at the edge of the exhibition hall.’ Arthur Chandler records
the following observation concerning the placement of the pavilions: ‘[T]he scheme of
the whole was undiscoverable, since the placement of the 200 pavilions was made without
any overarching plan, with the exception of those in the Trocadero Esplanade.’ François
Robichon, 1983, quoted in Chandler, ‘An Undiscoverable Scheme,’ in Confrontation: The
Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne (1937).