Editing Centennial Exposition (section)

==Herman J. Schwarzmann==
[[Herman J. Schwarzmann]], an engineer for the Fairmount Park Commission, was appointed the main designer of the exposition. In 1869, Schwarzmann began working for the Fairmount Park Commission, which administered the site of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. It is one of the great urban parks of the United States; its importance in landscape history was surpassed only by [[Central Park]]. Schwarzmann was the chief architect for the Centennial Exposition, designing Memorial Hall, Horticultural Hall, other small buildings, and the landscaping around them. His work for the Centennial Exposition was informed by the [[Weltausstellung 1873 Wien|Vienna International Exposition in 1873]], which Schwarzmann visited to study the buildings and the grounds layout. The Vienna International Exposition in 1873 was marred by disastrous logistic planning and was taken as a cautionary example.

At the Vienna Exposition, there was no convenient way for visitors to reach the fairgrounds, and exorbitant rates were charged by carriage drivers. Drawing lessons from this failure, the Philadelphia exposition was ready for its visitors, with direct railroad connections to service passenger trains every 30 minutes, trolley lines, street cars, carriage routes, and even docking facilities on the river.