World exhibitions: didactical projects towards real reform; advocates and catalysts of our modern urban society, economy and metropolis

World exhibitions are didactical instruments in the hands of the upcoming elites who instructed the general public about the modernisation of their traditional world. in that respect world exhibitions were and still are crucial instruments in the formation of our modern urban society and culture. the nineteenth and twentieth century are the ages of the big reform movements for the improvement of our urban condition. Exhibitions were instrumental not so much in preaching textbook reforms but demonstrating practical and material solutions. To paraphrase the urbanist Ebenezer howard: exhibitions are didactical projects towards real reform. they propagated the modernization of the urban economy through innovations of technology, of sciences and applied art. They contributed in the creation of new urban social orders – most notably in the emancipation of successively the industrial elite and later on of the industrial working classes. And they demonstrated new ideas, strategies and models of urbanism and urban architecture for the modern metropolis. this will be illustrated by an analysis of the very first world exhibition held in 1851 in London: the great Exhibition of the Works of industry of All Nations.
Keywords: Didactical projects, Reform movements, Modern urban condition, 1851