Past Watch Site

Located in New York City's Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the New York State Pavilion was designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson in collaboration with Richard Foster and structural engineer Lev Zetlin for the 1964 World's Fair. Commissioned by New York State with the guidance of Governor Nelson Rockefeller-who insisted that it be the largest and tallest of the World's Fair structures-the pavilion consisted of an open-air, elliptical structure called the Tent of Tomorrow, a theater in the round, and three towers topped by circular platforms.

The elliptical floor of the Tent of Tomorrow was covered with a large terrazzo map that replicated the Texaco road map of New York State and a suspended roof of translucent, colored plastic panels. The exterior of the circular theater was decorated with ten large-scale works by contemporary American artists, among them Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg.

The smallest tower was 18 meters (59 feet) tall and housed a restaurant, while the middle and tallest towers-45 meters (147 feet) and 68 meters (223 feet)-contained observation decks that provided views of the fairgrounds and the Manhattan skyline. The pavilion complex was one of the few World's Fair structures not panned by architectural critics. Ada Louis Huxtable of The New York Times said that it was a "runaway success, day or night…a sophisticated frivolity…seriously and beautifully constructed. This is 'carnival' with class."

Most of the 1964 World's Fair structures-many of which were intended to be temporary-were demolished following the close of the two-year event. Of those that were not demolished, however-including the Hall of Science and the New York Port Authority building-the New York State Pavilion is the only one that was not adaptively reused with a permanent plan, although it has occasionally been used as a skate park and as performance space for Queens Theatre in the Park. The building's steward, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, has struggled to maintain it in the decades since. The iconic structure is seen by millions of people each year but its significance is little recognized.

Included on the 2008 World Monuments Watch, the Tent of Tomorrow is in imminent danger of collapse due to the deterioration of the exposed steel structure and the decay of the wood piles that serve as the building's foundation.

Last update: 2008