“Peace Through Understanding”

IBM’s pavilion for the 1964 New York World’s Fair was one of the Eames Office’s most significant and elaborate commissions of the 1960s. Developed in collaboration with the architectural office of Eero Saarinen (followed by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo after Saarinen’s sudden passing in September 1961), the Pavilion’s overall concept was to engage visitors with a series of entertaining experiences that would convey the many applications and uses for computers in the modern world. To that end, the designers developed a series of exhibitions, from animatronic puppet shows, to a new installation of Mathematica, to a “Typewriter Bar,” “Computer Court,” and “Scholar’s Walk,” culminating in a 22-screen film entitled Think!. Visible at the center of the rendering on this promotional postcard produced by the Fair is the “People Wall,” a grandstand mounted onto a steeply raked hydraulic mechanical lift. Once the audience (capacity 400) was seated on the Wall, the bleachers would rise into the ovoid theater—modeled after the typing element found on IBM’s latest electric typewriters—and the elaborate multi-screen presentation would begin.