In the late 1930s, Stephenson & Turner showcased a young and progressive Australia at three World Fairs.

The Australian Pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 1937 was a Moderne cylinder with a prominent flagpole and raised lettering in orange neon to match other external orange trim. The interior exhibit comprised a travel advice bureau, a collection of paintings of natural and agricultural landscapes, various photographs, and a ceiling design.

The Australian Pavilion at the New York World Fair in 1939, consisted of an interior fit-out of the British Empire building and was a collaborative effort. John Oldham and Arthur Baldwinson were the project architects, with significant contributions by artists and designers Douglas Annand, Adrian Feint, Margaret Preston and Russell Roberts.

The display was divided into three sections covering wool, travel and industry. Features included a suspended aluminium globe and a moving diorama, as well as rubber floors with contrasting traffic-direction lines (the last directly referencing architect Alvar Aalto's Paimio sanatorium, considered famous as a masterpiece of Modernist architecture).

A similar team of artists and designers was responsible for the third Australian pavilion, at the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in 1939. The star attraction was the pavilion building itself. Principally designed by the German Swiss émigré architect Frederick Romberg (with input from Arthur Stephenson and others), this pavilion is considered to be 'an exercise in picturesque asymmetry, formal assembly, and textural richness'. (Philip Goad, 'Collusions of Modernity: Australian Pavilions in New York and Wellington, 1939', in Fabrications, 10, April 1999.)

The New York and New Zealand pavilions in particular project an image of Australia as young, new and progressive. Both draw their inspiration from modern hospital design, and each adds its own layer to the complex history of Modernism in Australia.