Norway in Paris 1889

By Magnus Knarvik Hørnes

The world exhibitions were spectacular events in the second half of the 19th century. During the period, an international amusement park settled in Europe's new big cities. Monuments and exhibition halls were erected for the occasion, the whole world was to be shown to millions of visitors. Here you could see the most beautiful works of art, the most magnificent architecture and the latest in technique and science. The world exhibitions celebrated the progress of the progress in the western world, driven by the industrial revolution and the market economy of capitalism. Here, the modern world was intertwined, both as a meeting place for international players, but also for processes such as industrialization, world trade, nationalism and colonialism.

As a result of this interaction, the world exhibitions are a phenomenon that is difficult to describe as a whole. But if one is to say something in general about the changes that happened from the very first world exhibition in London in 1851 and those who came after, it is that the technique was increasingly equated with the culture. Initially, where there was most attention to exclusive goods and art, this was gradually overshadowed by powerful machines and effective industrial mass production. The world's new emphasis on the technique and industry as meaning -producing objects, and not only as an instrumental tool, is in many ways also the precursor to the ideas behind the technical museums. This makes the world exhibitions particularly interesting to explore for these museums. 

As a result of the ideous link between the world exhibitions and The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology the museum's archives have plenty of material connected to the exhibitions. Recently, two foreign books were highlighted for further investigation. Both dealt with the exhibition in Paris in 1889, one of the most spectacular and recognizable of its kind. Meaned to celebrate the revolution anniversary In 1789, the exhibition has left lasting traces on the city when the big monument of the exhibitions, the Eiffel Tower, has become an unmistakable symbol of Paris.

The first work tries to capture the feeling of participating in the world exhibition. The weekly newspaper L'Asposition de Paris is reproduced here in two volumes of over 1000 pages. The newspaper was released while the exhibition was going on and covered all the events for both participants and other interested parties. As a form of advertising, it ensured the spectacular, the new and the exotic, and the newspaper is abundantly illustrated with pictures from the entire exhibition area. It thus provides insight into the sensational aspects of the World Exhibition and builds on the tivolist mood that characterized it.

The second work is more sober and comprehensive. The French Society of Engineers' official report from the World Exhibition is collected in 16 volumes. It describes the technical aspects of the exhibition objects that were awarded prizes in each category, and all of them were illustrated in the atlases that accompanied the report. The technological innovations were to be described and summarized for a specialized audience. The work belonged to the city engineer's office before it was donated to The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology . Norwegian bureaucrats and engineers therefore closely followed the innovations that were displayed in Paris as inspiration for improvements at home.

Norway was not only a spectator, but an active participant in the world exhibitions. This is also evident in the works of 1889 which contains information on Norwegian prizes and illustrations of the exhibitions. On this basis, we will look into the Norwegian contributions to the world exhibitions and the various ways the exhibition were used as a nation -building of the Norwegian delegation, as well as the international marketing of Norwegian companies.

World exhibitions coincided with the rise of nationalism throughout the 19th century. In Norway, an important reason for participation was to showcase as an independent and legitimate nation. This was especially the case in 1889 when King Oscar II refused to participate in the exhibition since it celebrated the fall of the French monarchy. Previously, Norway and Sweden had to share in exhibition space, but this time the Norwegians got far freer leeway. How would one present Norway to the world? What items should appear? What should the pavilions look like? These were important and contentious questions in the present. After all, it was talk of defining what was Norwegian.

One of the most explicit examples of this nation-building project is seen in the stylistic expression of the Norwegian departments. The two most important buildings of the Norwegian delegation were the facade of the Norwegian Industry Department, designed by architect Wilhelm von Hanno in the iconic dragon style, and the offices of the exhibition committee in the Swiss villa La chalet Norvegienne.

Both the dragon and Swiss styles were closely linked to the national romantic currents in Norwegian cultural life and were used to draw links to an "original Norwegian" identity from the Middle Ages and the Viking Age. Dragon head ornaments and tarred wood made the farmstead facade resemble a stave church, and the rural expression of the Swiss villa gave the impression that it had been moved straight from Gudbrandsdalen to the foot of the Eiffel Tower. In this way, the Norwegian delegation was able to emphasize the impression of Norway as an old and legitimate nation, which was very important for the struggle for independence at the end of the 19th century.

There was a danger in equating oneself too much with the old, traditional and pre-modern. After all, the World's Fair was a place to celebrate progress and the modern world. By drawing too strongly on its pre-modern history, Norway was in danger of defining itself outside the light of progress and civilization. This danger materialized in one of the French monuments built for the World's Fair, Historie de l'habitation humaine , which was intended to show the development of living conditions through the ages.

Along the Seine, a series of model houses had been built by the French architect Charles Garnier, representing different centuries and cultures, from the least to the most advanced. One began at a simple cave and progressed past shacks and earthen huts. About halfway along the road stood the so-called Scandinavian house, a modest little storehouse with dragon ornaments. The audience agreed that this was a beautiful house to look at, but it was still a long way to go to the modern and civilized homes at the end of the road.

The fascination with folkloric displays was certainly present at the 1889 World's Fair, but it was confined to the Esplanade des Invalides, where France's colonial empire was showcased. Here, colonized peoples were exhibited in human zoos. Their "exotic lifestyles" were a popular attraction and were often used in promotional materials.

The colonial societies were depicted in "traditional" living environments, working with "traditional" arts and in the evenings they performed "traditional" folk dances to the delight of the audience. There is a gap between the representation of Norwegian folk culture and the representation of the colonized non-Europeans, but there was a real fear among the exhibition committee that Norway could be perceived as a backward and barbaric country, and the colonial section was a reminder of how pre-modern societies were treated in the new "civilized" world. In a speech to the Storting, Johan Castberg warned that the French might consider exhibiting "'les Samojédes de Norvége' – Samoyeds from Norway, Mr. President!".

It was therefore very important to meet a balance in the production of Norway as both an old and legitimate nation, but also as a modern and civilized industrialized country. This balance came to an expression in the industrial department facade and La Chalet Norvegienne. Because although the aesthetic feel of the buildings drew on traditional buildings, their production method was high -modern. The companies behind, respectively, Strømmen Trævarefabrik for the facade and M. Thams & Co for the Swiss villa, were the foremost producers of ready -made houses in Norway.

The ready-made house industry had accelerated from the mid-1800s and was about prefabricating house parts with machine tools and sending the building as a finished package that could be set up after simple floor plans. The rise of the industry in Norway followed a general transition in the Norwegian lumber trade where the country went from exporting timber as raw materials to exporting wood in processed form. The ready -made houses were thus symbols of Norwegian industrialization. The dragon head ornaments were not hand cut according to traditional custom, but mass produced on an industrial scale. The ready -made houses had thus seen more in common with today's IKEA furniture than with the stave churches they drew inspiration from.

Today, few would associate wooden houses with the industrial revolution. Large steel structures such as the Eiffel Tower will probably be perceived as more representative. But at the present, the prefabricated, transport -friendly and easily mountable ready -made houses were considered as modern and admirable. La Chaet Norvegienne thus had a good symbolic location at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and after the exhibition was over, the Eiffel Tower's limited company bought the house and used it as an office building. The inner tension in the prefabricated Swiss villa between the traditional and the modern was what made it so effective in Norwegian identity building and as a result, M. Thams & Co was awarded a gold medal of the international jury.

A final important aspect of the prefabricated houses that helped to reinforce the symbolic distinction between the Norwegian exhibition and the colonial section was the use of the prefabricated houses by colonial powers. Despite the fact that the houses were industrially mass-produced, they were little used during the urbanization of Europe. However, their easy transport capacity and short construction time made them ideal for colonial settlements. During the exhibition, the man behind La Chalet Norvegienne, Christian Thams, became well acquainted with King Leopold II, King of Belgium and owner of the Congo Free State. In the years that followed, Thams prefabricated houses supplemented the king's colonial activities.

Other prefabricated house manufacturers exported houses to places like Greenland and Australia. The Norwegian prefabricated houses are thus an example of how the complex processes of the 19th century merged at the World's Fair. Here, nation-building, trade, industrialization and colonialism were inextricably linked.

Participation in the World Exhibition was not only motivated by nation building. It was so much a matter of marketing for the Norwegian companies that participated. One of them was Myren's mechanical workshop, which was among the largest companies in the country at this time. Known as the factory's factory they produced turbines and for power generation and wood processing machines, as well as making floor plans for entire factory plants. Not all categories at the World Exhibition Norway could hope to compete in, but in the timber industry Norwegian companies had a good comparative advantage. Myrens therefore participated in the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878, the precursor to it in 1889, and here they won a silver medal for their improved planer.

The exhibition in 1878 was the first exhibition where Norwegian industrial machinery was truly showcased. Norwegian machinery had been exhibited on previous occasions, but this was the first time that Norwegian companies could compete internationally and win. A Norwegian lumber company that was awarded was Gregersen and Mørch, who received a bronze medal for their wood grinding mill in Modum, which was also designed by Myrens. This bronze medal is in the collection of The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology , and is on display in the sawmill exhibition. A version of Myrens's award-winning planing machine is also on display in the same exhibition. The traces from the World Exhibition are therefore also outside the archives.

But it is not only The Norwegian Museum Of Science And Technology who has wanted to showcase the medals and prices. The companies used this actively in their marketing. Myrens Mek. The workshop's illustrated Catalog from 1888 shows all of their medals on the front, the middle is the silver medal from 1878. The other medals were won at local and national exhibitions, but the prestige and credibility that came with the international recognition of a world exhibition was difficult to beat. The silver medal was therefore used on promotional material long after the World Exhibition, also on the back of Myrens illustrated catalog from 1898, a full 20 years after the prize was given.

The international recognition meant that a larger European market became familiar with Myrens' machines, and after the award, several foreign companies were interested in their machines. In a list of companies that used Myrens' planing machine, which should also be considered an advertising document, it appears that Myrens supplied machines to Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Germany, Russia, Finland and the rest of Scandinavia.

This list was aimed at an international audience and is therefore reproduced in four different languages: Norwegian, French, German and English. This corresponds to Myren's ambitions in the 1870s to expand the business beyond the Norwegian market. Participation in and advertising the victory from the World Exhibition was thus an important part of this strategic shift.