This paper examines the role of the word’s fairs in the conceptualization of ‘cultural heritage’.
In 1851 Prince Albert initiated the world’s fair as a display of industrial progress, and history and ‘heritage’ entered the scene through the back door: by manufacturers putting the history of their products on display. The retrospective element was more systematically introduced through the fine arts exhibitions and arts and crafts shows. Subsequently, historic elements became constitutive of the most diverse parts of the exhibitions. The function of the historic element has been interpreted differently, but should not be reduced to an escapist counterbalance to modernization. It equally served as a background against which progress could be emphasized and rendered even more spectacular. Thus, at the 1889 Exposition universelle in Paris, which celebrated the centenary of the French Revolution, the visitor who left the retrospective art exhibition could meander through the Rue des Nations along the Seine, where the different nations had their pavilions constructed in ‘national styles’, be mesmerized by the reconstructions of the Vieux Paris and numerous rural idylls or view the entire history of human housing in a single place. He could continue with “horse-shoeing of war-horses” or stay on to delight in falconry, past and present, or immerse himself in ethnographic displays.
Returning in 1900, the same visitor could observe how the Eiffel Tower, attacked as the very enemy of Parisian and French patrimoine back in 1889– was already considered national heritage in 1900. Past and present mingled inextricably, and to each others’ advantage.
