UX Before UX Was a Thing

Don't focus on individual buildings just yet. Take in the full sequence: the arrival, the entrance, and your first view of the grounds. The exhibition began long before you crossed the turnstiles. The elevated tram station and the main entrance were designed to orchestrate a calculated reveal: alight, step forward, look up, and absorb the message of modernity with almost no instructions needed. Today we'd call it user experience. Back in 1928, they didn't need the buzzword to design the journey. Transit, urban planning, and civic branding worked in tandem to guide your body and capture your attention. You weren't simply entering a collection of pavilions; you were navigating a user interface built at an urban scale. Parts of that original sequence have changed, so assess what you actually see on the ground today. Still, keep the core question in mind: what does this entrance want you to look at first? The next stop offers an answer that's hard to ignore. There, the young republic doesn't whisper who it wants to be—it declares it under massive vaults.