# Festival Hall and the colonnades: the September 8 checkpoint

Festival Hall is becoming the project’s first detailed example of what the rest of the fair could eventually look like. It is still unfinished. The recent work has concentrated on related architectural features across the building and its surroundings, rather than finishing one carving at a time.

## What has changed

The Hall has gained layered entrance trim, window surrounds, capitals, finer roof glazing, cornice brackets and early sculpture studies. Both restaurant pavilions have more facade and balcony detail. Around the Cascades, the gardens meet nearby stairs more smoothly, the falling water has more variation, and planting and lighting studies begin to fill out the scene. [Hall photograph, P061](https://www.loc.gov/item/2013649873/); [Rau’s terrace view, P019](https://www.loc.gov/item/2013649761/).

A newly collected photograph looks along the Colonnade of States. It shows distinct seated figures in curved bays, with deep stepped bases and decorated framing above the columns. The model now includes blank frieze frames and first pedestal studies in fourteen bays. These are only the upper portions: the deeper bases, their connections to the lower promenade and the individual statues remain missing. [NYPL photograph, P062](https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-93cc-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99); [source register](/sources).

## What the research changed

The research task now works through a queue of questions raised by the model. It collects material and records what was actually inspected. The building task reviews those handoffs, decides how a source can be used and updates the next priorities. Finding a catalogue entry, downloading a scan, inspecting it and using it in a model are separate steps.

Recent magazine pages identify pre-opening designs for Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota. They give us distinct forms to compare with installed photographs, but they do not establish the final positions of the statues. We also corrected an attribution: page 175 belongs to a different article from Lorado Taft’s pages 199–236. Keeping the page references made that mistake visible. Some period descriptions use racial stereotypes; those are evidence of the fair’s outlook, not language for us to adopt. [December 1903 magazine, B025](https://books.google.com/books?id=wIksAAAAMAAJ).

The NYPL stereo card carries a 1904 copyright imprint, while one digital record says 1903. Both dates remain in the source record. The original scan stays in the research collection; the public site receives a smaller, faithful access image.

## What we checked—and what the checks cannot prove

The latest colonnade pass was inspected in the browser from five viewpoints and lighting setups, including a brighter follow-up where the first views were too shadowed to judge detail. A contact sheet helps compare views efficiently, but small details still need their original captures. This approach has previously caught filled arch openings and roof ribs cutting through ornament that ordinary code checks missed.

Ground and movement checks passed, as did repeated loading and unloading of the detailed models. The pedestal foundations remain visible and solid when finer detail unloads, and the promenade stays open. These checks establish behavior in the tested scene; they do not prove historical accuracy or cover every device and every corner of the fair.

Festival detail is now delivered in 23 separate model packages. This gives us room to keep adding architecture while loading it where it is needed. File sizes and resource counts are recorded; they are not a guarantee of performance on every phone or computer.

## How we are using AI

Astra has helped connect the project’s research, modeling and software work from the beginning. We are now putting more bounded implementation and review work through Sol, using Terra for smaller defined engineering tasks and Luna for suitable catalogue work. The recent colonnade setting was implemented with Sol; the main task handled source interpretation, integration and publication. These are practical choices, not a measured speed comparison between models.

Short briefs, reused source packets, larger batches of related details and periodic combined reviews help avoid spending the same effort repeatedly. Failures stay in the record. Our [effort log](/progress#effort-title) reports recorded time and tokens separately from the estimate of work remaining.

## What comes next

The next architectural problem is the lower promenade and its connection to the pedestal bases, terraces and stairs. Existing ground levels do not yet support a simple downward extension of the small upper bases. That needs a coordinated surface and structure change. The Hall’s missing sculpture, finer profiles and uncertain rear treatment also remain open.

Across the rest of the fair, most buildings still need substantial work. The overall outdoor-project estimate remains about 25%, with a broad 15–30% range. That is a low-confidence planning judgment, not a percentage of historically verified detail. Interiors remain outside this first target.

[Explore Festival Hall](/explore?visit=festival) · [Progress and methods](/progress) · [Sources and research contacts](/sources)