During the First World War the estate was used as a military hospital, and in the Second World War was requisitioned by the War Office and used in turn as a transit camp, RAF HQ and US Army Command HQ. The estate was the venue for the 1936 Royal Show. One of the exhibition buildings, despite its temporary nature, was an innovative piece of modernist architecture still remembered as the Gane Pavilion. It was designed by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer as a show house for the Bristol furniture manufacturer Crofton Gane. For most of the 20th century Ashton Court was the venue for the North Somerset Show, however this is now held in Wraxall.