Are we _sure_ that the architect chose materials that would
deteriorate because he was trying to make some philosophical
point? or was that simply that "expo" architecture of his times
did it that way? I ask because I was interested to learn that
all the grandiose Beaux Arts "buildings" of the Chicago World's
Fair in 1898 (The "City White") were wood structures covered with
lath and then "stuccoed" with some kind of ticky-tacky called
"staff." The Museum of Science and Industry - the sole survivor,
I believe, the little row of shops over by the IC tracks viaduct
having been demolished while I was at UC in the early '60s - had
to be completely rebuilt as a building.