In the interior of the quadrangular building is an open space about two hundred feet broad and nearly two thousand feet long, reaching from one vestibule to the other; and in this space are two rows of fine-art pavilions and a building for the exhibition of the municipal works of the city. This isolated building is in the central portion of the whole structure, the fine-art pavilions being arranged in line with it, four in a group, the salons of a group connected by lobbies and also with the large end-vestibules at the end upon which they abut.
The French and foreign sides of the Exposition building on the Champ de Mars have frontages upon the interior court, and the façades of the foreign sections are made ornamental and are intended to be characteristic of the countries. There is a great discrepancy in the space assigned to each: that of Great Britain is the longest, amounting to five hundred and forty feet in length, while the little territories of Luxembourg, Andorra, Monaco and San Marino, which are clubbed together, have unitedly about twenty-five feet of frontage. In some cases the space assigned to a nation does not run back the full four hundred feet to the outside of the building, but it is intended that each shall have some part of the façade in this allée. Much taste and more expense have been lavished upon the architectural construction and embellishment of the façades, and the row reminds one of the scenes in a theatre, where palace, cottage, mosque and jail stand side by side, giving a particolored effect as various as the different emotions which the respective buildings might be supposed to elicit. The English space being so large, no single design was adopted, as it could have but a monotonous effect, but the frontage was divided into five portions, each of which illustrates some style of villa or cottage architecture, and is separated from the adjoining one by garden-beds. The first, counting from the Salle de la Seine, is of the style of Queen Anne's reign. It is built of a patented imitation of red brickwork. Thin slabs of Portland cement concrete are faced with smaller slabs of red concrete of the size of bricks and screwed to the wooden frame of the building. The house has tall casements in a bay with a balcony, and an entablature on top of the wall. The second house is the pavilion of the prince of Wales, and is of the Elizabethan style. It is built of rubble-work faced with colored plaster in imitation of red brickwork and Bath-stone dressings. The front has niches for statuary, and above the windows are shield-shaped panels for armorial bearings. The windows are in square clusters, with small lights in hexagonal leaden cames. The union jack flies from the staff. The third house is constructed of red brick and terra-cotta, and is not specially characteristic of any period. It is, in fact, a jumble of the early Gothic with a Moorish entablature and a balustrade parapet. The stained-glass casement windows are surmounted with circular lights in the arches. The fourth house is built of pitch-pine framework, enriched with carving and filled in with plaster panels--a style of construction known as "half-timbered work," much employed in England from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. This house is placed at the disposal of the Canadian commissioners. It has a large square two-story bay-window, with the customary small glass panes in cames of lozenge and other patterns, and is perhaps the neatest and most cozy house in the row. The fifth is of the construction of an English country-house in the reign of William III. It is of timber, with stucco and rough-cast panels, and has a large bay-window in the second story, surmounted by a gable to the street and covering an old-fashioned stoop with seats on each side. The five houses have a pretty effect, and each has a home look. The façades only are on exhibition, the interiors being private. They contrast with others in the "street" in the same way as the habits of the different peoples. Some build their houses to retire into, and others to exhibit themselves. Each nation being asked for the façade of a house, the Italian has built a portico where he can lounge, see and be seen; the Englishman has in all serenity represented what he deems comfort, and shuts the front door.