National and colonial: the Musee des Colonies at the Colonial Exposition, Paris, 1931

A city has just been born, attached to Paris. In the groves of the Ile-de-France, the sun germinates surprising flowerings of stone, wood temples, beaten earth, strange sculptures, roofs like curved prows, bellturrets with bulbs and creepers. . . . A curious population inhabits it: whites of an olive tint and yellows of a pale visage, blacks with skin of shining ebony, lemon Orientals. . . . all the races, all the languages, all the costumes, all the vocations. And over this crowd from Babel, swarming and guttural, over the palaces and the huts in the billowing Vincennes greenery, the tricolor flag snaps in the pale sky, the symbol of the unity of the French Colonial Empire.

We are here at "Lyauteyville," the magisterial, picturesque and coherent ensemble realized by [Lyautey] our great African, a magnificent resume of all that which old Europe has made in the universe, rallying center for all the peoples who love the French genius and its manifestations across the World.(1)

L'Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris feted the accomplishments of colonialism from May 6 to November 15, 1931 [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. Nicknamed Lyauteyville after the exposition's commissioner general, Marechal Hubert Lyautey,(2) this was the last international world's fair exclusively devoted to the celebration of international colonialism. France hosted the Colonial Exposition - joined by Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, and the United States - to demonstrate its colonial puissance and to stimulate the French public's interest in its colonial empire. The only colonial power absent from Paris was Britain, which, although invited to the Colonial Exposition, had staged its own imperial extravaganza in 1924-25 and lacked both the resources and interest in participating in a celebration of French colonialism. Germany no longer possessed a colonial empire, having been stripped of its colonies after World War I, and Japan was not yet recognized as a colonial power. The Colonial Exposition attracted a huge audience (there were 33 million entries into the exposition) from France and abroad and generated an overwhelmingly positive critical response.(3)

The Musee des Colonies (Museum of the Colonies) was unique at the 1931 Colonial Exposition as the only permanent structure and the only pavilion that represented both France and its colonies. The majority of the exposition's pavilions was modeled after native architectural styles, from the Sudanese mud tata to the Polynesian straw hut. Marcel Olivier,(4) the delegate general of the exposition, saw the pavilions as the literal embodiment of the exposition's mission: "Colonization is legitimate. It is beneficial. These are the truths that are inscribed on the walls of the pavilions at the Bois de Vincennes."(5)

The original impetus for the 1931 Colonial Exposition grew out of the popularity of the colonial section at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle:

The initial idea [for the exposition] goes back to 1910. In 1910, we naturally turned toward exoticism, then in full novelty. We dreamed of renewing, with more brilliance and more sincerity, the picturesque ambience - although quite false and sometimes excessive - of the successful colonial sections at the 1878, 1889, and 1900 expositions. Why not transport once again, in a larger setting in the middle of Paris, this vision of the Near and the Far East? . . .

The initial conception of an Exposition of Exoticism was later enriched, amplified, and led toward more elevated goals. It was no longer a matter of artificially reconstituting an exotic ambience, with architectural pastiches and parades of actors, but of placing before the eyes of its visitors an impressive summary of the results of colonization, its present realities, its future.(6)

The 1931 Colonial Exposition, in contrast to the colonial displays at previous expositions, was planned to convey the potential future as well as the current reality of international colonization through pedagogical and accurate displays. As envisaged by Marshal Lyautey, the exposition had two educational goals: first, to stimulate French business to invest in the colonies, and second, to overcome the apathy and even hostility that the French public felt toward its colonial empire. National pride was at stake, and the exposition was meant to counter the image of the casanier (stay-at-home), lethargic French who cared nothing for their colonial holdings.(7) The directors of the Colonial Exposition linked French colonialism with the long history of conquest beginning with the Crusades, but they distinguished their own, enlightened colonialism from the brutality of former colonization. According to their vision of colonization, a stable, pacific world had resulted from the spread of French civilization on a global scale. Lyautey and his colleagues sought to make the Colonial Exposition reflect the beneficial progress of the French "civilizing mission," the responsibility to bring civilization to the natives by means of scientific, authentic exhibitions, rather than vulgar, exotic entertainments.