La Tour Eiffel, that instantly recognizable industrial mirage, was never intended to stay. Built as a temporary installation for the Exposition Universelle of 1889 to stun, outrage and amaze, this flight of fancy has become an indelible symbol of it’s birthplace. Across town in another controversial construction, the Pompidou Center museum show Dreamlands explores the influence of fantastical creations on urban design. World Expos and amusement parks draw you in, immersion so complete that you can taste the cotton candy. By the end the joke has worn as thin as the final conceit, an insipid conceptual art burp using the myth of Superman’s origins to toothlessly savage planned communities. The point where curatorial concept and care run short is evident, as though the budget for staging was ripped from beneath their feet. Starry-eyed visitors become parents wearily carting their unruly brood through commercial artifice light on both fun and substance.
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