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.