House of plenty

Cosimo Cavallaro's cheese house (see previous post) may seem bizarre and outré, but consider its relationship to a particular form of American vernacular architecture: the corn palace. After all, the Cheese House was part of Powell, Wyoming's cheese festival and was executed in association with the town's chamber of commerce.

The Mitchell, South Dakota Corn Palace (for which new corn murals are commissioned every year) is the only extant example of this type of building, but it was not the first. Late 19th century North America was obsessed with agricultural fairs and expositions. Exhibitors were eager to provide proof of the miraculous bounty produced by their regions, so they erected monuments not only to their harvests, but from them.



In addition to Perth, Ontario's Mammoth Cheese, the agricultural exhibit at World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893, in Chicago, featured a breathtaking and diverse collection of walk-through cornucopias. Among them were a Moorish-style tribute to corn and sugar-beets from Nebraska, a sort of wheat-sheaf baldaquin from Minnesota, and Pennsylvania's cozy fireside scene, pictured above. One of Canada's contributions was this ethereal display of Ontario fruit under glass:



Compared to these elaborate installations, the CNE's Food Building seems like fairground conceptualism :