Philadelphia in 1876.107 Meanwhile, many smaller ones were organised in all countries for all
branches of trade and industry. The Netherlands were no exception and can also serve as an
excellent example of just how much of an impact the Great Exhibition had and how it had
captured everyone’s imagination: one need only take a look at a depiction of the so-called
Paleis van Volksvlijt (Palace of the People’s Diligence), which was set up in 1865, to see that
it was clearly modelled on the Crystal Palace.108 The Amsterdam Paleis - basically a huge
exhibition area - was founded upon the initiative of Samuel Sarphati, who unsurprisingly
appears to have developed and first started pitching the idea for this project shortly after he
returned from the Great Exhibition in London. His efforts having bom fruit, the building’s
cornerstone was laid in 1859 in the presence of King William III. Six years later its first
exhibition - on agriculture - was opened to the public.
Secondly, it became fashionable to attend these fairs and to be seen at the places where they
were held. As was already said, the Great Exhibition was essentially a trade fair, in that it
provided manufacturers from all over the world with an opportunity to present their products
and allowed for a comparison with similar products from other nations. The subsequent
World’s Fairs were no different. But after 1851, they started to acquire the same sort of highbrow,
exclusive aura that temporary exhibitions of fine art already had during the previous
decades, as was described above. In other words World’s Fairs “ or trade exhibitions —
became places to see and be seen” as well. The reason this is relevant is that some of this
inevitably mbbed off on the industrial products on display and, by extension, technology and
engineering itself. There was now less of a difference between a painting that was lauded by
the art critics at an art exhibition and an industrial product that was singled out for praise by
the expert juries that were always assembled to award prizes to individual manufacturers.
Note however that this is still a long way off from defining science or engineering itself as an
art and a cultured activity and that the World’s Fairs’ primary purpose was still to aid and
abet trade and business. Technology could lead to progress, but it was not an art.
Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, Albert used the impetus provided by the Great
Exhibition to establish what is considered to be, “in respect of its content, its functioning and
the public that it targeted, the first modem museum” — the South Kensington Museum,
rechnstened in 1899 as the Victoria & Albert Museum.109 This was possible because the
Great Exhibition had turned a profit. Even before the exhibitors left Hyde Park, Albert had
acquired land in South Kensington and started debating his vision of erecting a cultural centre
for the public in this area of London.110 Over the course of the next years he had elaborate
plans drawn up for a huge set of buildings by the German architect Gottfried Semper, who
On the Centennial see for instance: Giberti, Designing the Centennial: a History o f the 1876 International
Exhibitionin Philadelphia. This book also contains brief summaries o f the other fairs mentioned: Ibid., 7-15.
For 19' century industrial trade fairs held in the Netherlands before and after the Great Exhibition see: Titus
M. Eliens, Kunst, nijverheid, kunstnijverheid: de nationale nijverheidstentoonstellingen als spiegel van de
Nederlandse kunstnijverheid in de negentiende eeuw (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1990). On the Paleis see: Emile
^^nnekes, lie! Paleis voor Volksvlijt (1864-1929): “Edele uiting eener stoute gedachte!" (Den Haag: Sdu,
Krzysztof Pomian, “The South Kensington Museum: A Turning Point,” in Art and Design fo r All: The
Victoria and Albert Museum (London: V&A Publishing, 2011), 41.
Bryant, “‘Albertopolis’: The German Sources o f the Victoria and Albert Museum,” 25-27.
had seen himself forced to flee the German town of Dresden following his support for the
Democratic uprisings there in 1849. Albert’s scheme proved to be too ambitious - it was
mockingly referred to as “Albertopolis” by his detractors — but did yield the South Kensington
Museum. This museum of the applied arts was a major achievement in and of itself. It first
opened to the public in 1857 and was housed in the so-called “Brompton Boilers”. Although
the building itself heralded what was to come - it was the first permanent exhibition hall to
sport gas lighting, enabling longer opening hours and was also the first museum to include a
restaurant111 - it proved to be only temporary, with construction immediately commencing on
the more imperial building that houses the Victoria & Albert Museum to this day and which
was completed in 1909.
The museum’s initiators - Albert entrusted Henry Cole (later Sir Henry Cole) with overseeing
the implementation of his plans ¡¡¡were hoping for it to operate on a number of levels. Early
on Albert for instance emphasised that any cultural centre in South Kensington should
underscore cooperation and peace amongst the nations of the world.113 On a more palpable
level, the aim of the South Kensington Museum as it was opened in 1857 was to provide
craftsmen with examples of good design - both technical and aesthetic - in order to provide
them with inspiration for their own work. In the long term this was to yield some economic
benefit by ensuring British industrial products remained competitive.
3. The Public Museum in Support of Public Mores
Perhaps most importantly, though, the museum was also supposed to instil visitors with moral
values. Cole for one explicitly stated as much, taking the view that a visit to a museum was
far preferable to a visit to the pub. In 1875 for instance he adopted an almost missionary tone,
saying:
“[Ojpen all museums of Science and Art after the hours of divine service; let the working man
get his refreshment there in company with his wife and children, rather than leave him to
booze away from them in the Public House and Gin Palace. The Museum will certainly lead
him to wisdom and gentleness, and to Heaven, whilst the latter will lead him to brutality and
perdition.” 115
111 Pomian, “The South Kensington Museum: A Turning Point,” 42.
112 Bryant, “‘Albertopolis’: The German Sources o f the Victoria and Albert Museum,” 34-35.
113 Ibid., 26-27.
114 Edward P. Alexander, Museum Masters: Their Museums and Their Influence (Nashville: American
Association for State and Local History, 1983), 158.
115 As quoted in: Tony Bennett, The Birth o f the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (London; New York:
Routledge, 1995), 21. Parts o f this specific speech o f Cole’s are also quoted and contextualised in: Andrew
McClellan, “A Brief History o f the Art Museum Public,” in Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the
Millennium, ed. Andrew McClellan (Malden: Blackwell, 2003), 10.