The Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna (First International Exposition of Modern Decorative Arts), held in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, in 1902 (opened 10 May), was a world arts exhibition that was important in spreading the popularity of Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

 design, especially to Italy. Its aim was explicitly modern

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

: "Only original products that show a decisive tendency toward aesthetic renewal of form will be admitted. Neither mere imitations of past styles nor industrial products not inspired by an artistic sense will be accepted."

The chief architect was Raimondo Tommaso D'Aronco

Raimondo Tommaso D'Aronco

Raimondo Tommaso D’Aronco was an Italian architect renowned for his building designs in the style of Art Nouveau. He was the chief palace architect to the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II in Istanbul, Turkey for 16 years.- Early years :...

 who modelled his pavilions on those of Joseph Maria Olbrich

Joseph Maria Olbrich

Joseph Maria Olbrich was an Austrian architect and co-founder of the Vienna Secession.-Life:Olbrich was born in Opava, Austrian Silesia .He was the third child of Edmund and Aloisia Olbrich. He had two sisters who died before he was born, and two younger brothers John and Edmund...

 in Darmstadt

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

.

Numerous interiors were on display including "A Lady's Writing Room" designed by Frances MacDonald

Frances MacDonald

Frances MacDonald was a Scottish artist whose design work was a prominent feature of the "Glasgow Style" during the 1890s.The sister of better known artist Margaret MacDonald, she was born near at Tipton, near Wolverhampton, and moved to Glasgow with her family in 1890...

 and Herbert MacNair

Herbert MacNair

James Herbert MacNair , was a Scottish artist, designer and teacher whose work contributed to the development of the "Glasgow Style" during the 1890s....

 of the Glasgow School

Glasgow School

The Glasgow School was a circle of influential modern artists and designers who began to coalesce in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1870s, and flourished from the 1890s to sometime around 1910. Representative groups were: The Four , the Glasgow Girls and the Glasgow Boys...