This was facilitated by the flexible cloverleaf layout and circulation system with little bays extending from the main pathway. We also made extensive use of interior/exterior relationships with a large opening to the sky in the center and 4 openings in the middle of each side.
The elements were meant to enter the building: sun, wind, rain, the three seasons of Expo '67. The photographs were specially printed and prepared to weather these conditions.
Open air central court garden in the middle of it all, the focus of the exhibition’s pathways.
The entire exhibition was planned and erected in our Toronto office, using miniature photos and panels. (below) The photographic layout of each panel was made according to an x-y co-ordinate grid (see below) the specifications transmitted to Montreal for each photograph, mounted individually on site.
(layout grid for panel above)
(grid for panel below)
Using modular locating grids superimposed over the exhibit panels, holes were drilled through assigned x-y co-ordinate points on locating grids placed over the exhibition panels and the photographs securely connected with specially-designed mounts. The entire exhibition of 500 photos was installed in two days.
EXHIBITION DESIGN:
Morley Markson & Associates Limited.
INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE:
Robert Doisneau, Photographer, Paris. Fritz Gruber, Commissioner, Photokina, Cologne. Yousuf Karsh, Photographer, Ottawa. Beaumont Newhall, Director, George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.
CONSULTANTS AND REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES:
Sophie Bobat, Paris; Norman Hall, Picture Editor, the Times, London; L. Fritz Gruber, Commissaire, Photokina, Cologne
EXHIBITION PROJECT OFFICER AND ORIGINATOR:
Philip Pocock.
CANADIAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE:
Gaby Desmarais, Yousuf Karsh, Jean-Paul Morisset.
DESIGN FEATURES
ANGLES:
The points of view taken by the photo-grapher relative to height were taken into consideration in the placement of the photographs: the height and placement of the photographs as mounted on the panels varied accordingly, reflecting these points of view.
COMPOSITION:
To achieve display in a large though finite space for so many photographs, it was necessary to arrange photographs not in a continuous linearity as in some exhibitions, but here to be often doubled or even tripled both above and below the natural, default eyelines. Each arrangement of photographs, i.e. each panel, became a unified whole, and the following were taken into consideration: the variations in the relative points of view taken in the photographs themselves, their space and perspective qualities, their individual qualities of composition and massing, their light and darkness, their close-and-far variation, the sizing of the photographs based on a modular relationship system, etc. All these considerations were applied in miniature in our Toronto office to create the groupings and layouts of the exhibition.
THE SYSTEM:
Each photograph was indicated by X & Y co-ordinates for layout position and all of them matched by the fabricator-mounter to a full-size grid over each panel, directing the drill positioning for specially designed mounting brackets. A general area lighting above each panel was designed to accom-modate all photo positions. Then the exhibition was mounted in two days.
Man and His World: The Camera as Witness
Expo 67 Montreal
International Exhibition of Photography Pavilion
Exposition Internationale de Photographie: Regards sur la Terre des Hommes
Exhibition of 500 photographs by 272 photographers in 81 countries. Selected from 40,000 photographs. Expo 67's 10,000 square foot sequel to "The Family of Man" of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The Exhibition was planned to create many vistas and circulation choices, all on ground level, in which the visitors were gently guided in a general pathway configuration but could easily exercise options to enter and investigate any areas, as they wished, these areas and their themes being easily visible from wherever one stood on the main circulation pathways.
