Anders Houltz, head of research at the Center for Business History, gives a talk at Gothenburg’s natural history museum under the title “Gothenburg’s 100 year exhibition – The city, the museums, the industrial heritage”.
In May 1923, the grand Gothenburg exhibition was inaugurated to commemorate the city’s 300th anniversary. With its many exhibition pavilions on industry and crafts and its magnificent newly constructed buildings, gardens and parks such as the Art Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Botanical Garden and Liseberg, the event gave Gothenburg a shine.
The Gothenburg exhibition aroused an interest not only in industry and industrial renewal, but also in historical development, by putting cultural history and industrial heritage in flash light. During the six months that the exhibition was open, four million visitors came and many of the institutions that were started then are still there today.
Anders Houltz is associate professor in the history of technology and science and head of research at the Center for Business History. His doctoral thesis was about the Gothenburg exhibition, “Teknikens tempel: modernitet och industriarv på Göteborgsutställningen 1923” (in loose translation. “Temple of technology: modernity and industrial heritage at the Gothenburg exhibition 1923”).
