ABSTRACT
The Kaduna trade fair is an annual trade show that last for about a week and is organized by the Kaduna Chamber of comerce with assistance from both the Kaduna State and Federal Governments. It was started in 1974 as a local fair and attained International proportions in 1979. The fair has a good attendance and sales record and in recent times it has attained the level of a festival that draws regional spectators on the social scale. Like most events of its kind it was concieved as a means of providing forum for businessmen and exchange of ideas, open market for new products, attract foreign and local investment, expose new inventions and educate the public at large. Even though it is one of the two trade fairs sanctioned by the Federal Government as international (the other being that of Lagos), it has no permanent site but holds on a piece of land at the Murtala square Kaduna by the grace of the National sports Commission. This is the biggest impediment of the fair. The goal of this work therefore is that of providing a fitting exhibition centre for the fair that will go well with its activities by providing properly planned facilities that will reflect the exhibits, climatic condition and its socio-cultural status as a festival. Since the period of main usage is there abouts of a week, the centre will be adoptable to other uses, So that it doesn't become a ghost town when no exhibition is taking place. The study also intends to make policy and organizational suggestion to improve the fair generally. To achieve the stated goals the research will be geared in this directions: i) Evolution of trade fair and trade fair designs, ii) The socio-cultural value of the fair as regards its present form and any bearing it may have on its antecedant (the Local market days is rural areas weekly and by-weekly which are mini-trade fairs in their own rights.) iii) Possible derivation of forms that will enhance its image on the social scale without divorcing its function as mainly that of exhibition, iv) Ways in which climatic factors will best be taken care of.