1873 Vienna World's Fair

International exhibition of the 19th century Universal Historical Expo W Rotunde.jpg The Rotunde, the centre of the exhibition 1873 Weltausstellung Culture and Education (de Kultur und Erziehung) The Rotunde 233 ha 7,255,000 Austria-Hungary Vienna Prater 48 12 58 N 16 23 44 E dms type:landmark_region:AT-9 1873 05 01 1873 10 31 1873 10 31 y Exposition Universelle (1867) Paris Centennial Exposition Philadelphia The 1873 Vienna World's Fair (de Weltausstellung 1873 Wien) was a large world exposition that was held from 1 May to 31 October 1873 in the Austria-Hungarian capital Vienna. Its motto was "Culture and Education" (de Kultur und Erziehung). History As well as being a chance to showcase Austro-Hungarian industry and culture, the World's Fair in Vienna commemorated Franz JosephI's 25th year as emperor. The main grounds were in the Prater, a park near the Danube River, and preparations cost £23.4 million. It lasted from May 1 to November 2, hosting about 7,225,000 visitors. 53,000 exhibitors from 35 countries took part. In preparation for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair new hotels, cafes, and restaurants opened in Vienna, among them the Hotel Imperial which was converted from a residential palace to a grand hotel. Six new railway stations were built, launching Vienna as a European railway hub. The target of 20 million visitors was not reached due to a cholera outbreak and a stock exchange crash.https://www.artsandcollections.com/vienna-celebrates-150th-anniversary-of-worlds-fair/ Vienna Celebrates 150th Anniversary of World's Fair Arts & Collections Annalisa D'Alessio 10 July 2025 Facilities thumb|left|Hawaiʻi Division - Sandwich Islands (Nr. 1624); photography by György Klösz Exhibitors were housed in different buildings that were erected for this exposition, including the Rotunda (de Rotunde), a large circular building in the great park of Prater designed by the Scottish engineer John Scott Russell. (The fair Rotunda was destroyed by fire on 17 September 1937.) Even countries from far away like the Hawaiian Kingdom were represented at the fair. Italian pavilion Professor Lodovico Brunetti of Padua, Italy first displayed cremated ashes at the exhibition. He showed a model of the crematory, one of the first modern ones. He exhibited it with a sign reading, "Vermibus erepti, puro consummimur igni," in English, "Saved from the worms, we are consumed by the flames."Purified By Fire: A History of Cremation in America Prothero Stephen University of California Press 2001 0-520-20816-1 Los Angeles, California 9 Japanese pavilion A Western engraving of the Japanese craftsmen constructing the pavilion and garden The Japanese exhibition at the fair was the product of years of preparation. The empire had received its invitation in 1871, close on the heels of the Meiji Restoration, and a government bureau was established to produce an appropriate response. Shigenobu Okuma, Tsunetami Sano, and its other officials were keen to use the event to raise the international standing of Japanese manufactures and boost exports. 24 engineers were also sent with its delegation to study cutting-edge Western engineering at the fair for use in Japanese industry.https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=145 The World's Fair in Viena: The Origin of the Japanese Modern Museum Tokyo National Museum 2019 Art and cultural relics at the exhibit were verified by the Jinshin Survey, a months-long inspection tour of various imperial, noble, and temple holdings around the country.https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=147 The Jinshin Survey: Research of Cultural Properties Tokyo National Museum 2019 The most important products of each province were listed and two specimens of each were collected, one for display in Vienna and the other for preservation and display within Japan. Large-scale preparatory exhibitions with this second set of objects were conducted within Japan at the Tokyo Kaisei School (today the University of Tokyo) in 1871 and at the capital's Confucian Temple in 1872; they eventually formed the core collection of the institution that became the Tokyo National Museum.https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=144 Yushima Seido Exposition Tokyo National Museum 2019 Forty-one Japanese officials and government interpreters, as well as six Europeans in Japanese employ, came to Vienna to oversee the pavilion and the fair's cultural events. 25 craftsmen and gardeners created the main pavilion, as well as a full Japanese garden with shrine and a model of the former pagoda at Tokyo's imperial temple. Apart from the collection of regional objects, which focused on ceramics, cloisonné wares, lacquerware, and textiles, the displays also included the female golden shachi from Nagoya Castle and a papier-maché copy of the Kamakura Buddha. The year after the fair, Sano compiled a report on it which ran to 96 volumes divided into 16 parts, including a strong plea for the creation of a museum on western lines in the Japanese capital; the government further began hosting national industrial exhibitions at Ueno Park in 1877. Le Nil, a French Ship, set off from the port of Triest to Japan loaded with a number of items from the fair, in total 192 boxes. It sank off the Izu Peninsula on March 20, 1874.https://www.at-s.com/life/article/ats/1508362.html 「見つけたぞ」水深34ｍに船の痕跡 美術品積み150年海に眠る「ニール号」 歴史的価値伝える海の遺産＝静岡・南伊豆町｜静岡新聞アットエス Some items of art were later recovered.https://www.marinearchaeology.jp/project/nil/ Survey Project at the wreck site of the Nil(1874): （伝）ニール号沈没地点調査 – 東海大学 海洋考古学＆水中考古学プロジェクト One of the items is a ceramic square dish with grapes by Ogata Kenzan that was exhibited and was recovered.https://colbase.nich.go.jp/collection_items/tnm/G-33 ColBase New Zealand pavilion New Zealand was represented at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair by a collection of Māori clubs, mats and cloaks, as well as gold, woodwork, kauri gum and geological specimens. Photographs of New Zealand scenery were shown and examples of flour and beer were provided by local industries. A collection of birds was prepared by a London taxidermist and Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary was said to have been "astonished" by a pair of moa skeletons from the Canterbury Museum. More than 50 awards were collected by New Zealand exhibitors but, apparently, because of a problem of categorisation on the part of the jurors, the moa display was not among them.Wolfe Richard 11 November 2019 International Exhibitions https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/research/crafting-aotearoa/international-exhibitions live 30 April 2021 Auckland Museum https://web.archive.org/web/20200201222458/https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/research/crafting-aotearoa/international-exhibitions 2020-02-01 Ottoman pavilion thumb|Sultan Ahmed III Fountain reconstructed for the fair. Osman Hamdi Bey, an archaeologist and painter, was chosen by the Ottoman government as commissary of the empire's exhibits in Vienna. He organized the Ottoman pavilion with Victor Marie de Launay, a French-born Ottoman official and archivist, who had written the catalogue for the Ottoman Empire's exhibition at the 1867 Paris World's Fair.Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770–1945) Trencsényi Balász Kopečk Michal Central European University Press 2007 National Romanticism: Formation of National Movements II Budapest; New York 174–180 Osman Hamdi Bey and Victor Marie de Launay: The Popular Costumes of Turkey in 1873 The Ottoman pavilion, located near the Egyptian pavilion (which had its own pavilion despite being a territory of the Ottoman Empire),Ersoy Ahmet 2003 A Sartorial Tribute to Late Tanzimat Ottomanism: The Elbise-i 'Osmaniyye Album 1523332 Muqarnas 20 187–207 10.1163/22118993-90000044 in the park outside the Rotunde, included small replicas of notable Ottoman buildings and models of vernacular architecture: a replica of the Fountain of Ahmed III at Topkapı Palace, a model Istanbul residence, a representative hamam, a cafe, and a bazaar.Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs Çelik Zeynep University of California Press 1992 0520074947 Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford Islamic Quarters in Western Cities: Universal Exposition of 1873, Vienna The 1873 Ottoman pavilion was more prominent than its pavilion in 1867. The Vienna exhibition set off Western nations' pavilions against Eastern pavilions, with the host, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, setting itself at the juncture between East and West. A report by the Ottoman commission for the exhibition expressed a goal of inspiring with their display "a serious interest [in the Ottoman Empire] on the part of the industrialists, traders, artists, and scholars of other nations...." The Ottoman pavilion included a gallery of mannequins wearing the traditional costumes of many of the varied ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire. To supplement the cases of costumes, Osman Hamdi and de Launay created a photographic book of Ottoman costumes, the Elbise-i 'Osmaniyye (Les costumes populaires de la Turquie), with photographs by Pascal Sébah. The photographic plates of the Elbise depicted traditional Ottoman costumes, commissioned from artisans working in the administrative divisions (vilayets) of the Empire, worn by men, women, and children who resembled the various ethnic and religious types of the empire, though the models were all found in Istanbul. The photographs are accompanied by texts describing the costumes in detail and commenting on the rituals and habits of the regions and ethnic groups in question. Persian pavillion thumb|Persian pavilion in 1873 Vienna Fair Naser al-Din Shah Qajar visited 1873 Vienna Fair and Persian pavilion, in his first European journey and wrote about it extensively, in his handwritten travelogue. The Iranian pavilion was a two-storey mansion with a centralised plan, reminiscent of kiosks in Iranian architecture. Brick and plaster ornaments were used in the symmetrical façade, which its pillared portico, demonstrated the influence of Western architecture in Qajar Persia. There was also on outdoor tent which was used to illustrate the lifestyle of Iranian nomads. In the official book of the fair, Iranian pavilion was described as a "significant" building. Also, in Scientific American magazine, it was titled a "modern" work.Amir Bani-Masoud ایران و نمایشگاه‌های جهانی کتابکده کسری 2021 9786226963367 Mashhad, Iran 76 Fa Iran and World's Fairs thumb|Naval section of the Russian pavilion Russian pavilion The Russian pavilion had a naval section designed by Viktor Hartmann. Exhibits included models of the Port of RijekaCity of Rijeka http://www.rijeka.hr/fgs.axd?id=33957 PDF PATCHing the city 09 2009 November 27, 2013 6 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20120319052134/http://www.rijeka.hr/fgs.axd?id=33957 March 19, 2012 and the Illés Relief model of Jerusalem.http://www.towerofdavid.org.il/English/Exhibitions/Model_of_Jerusalem_in_the_19th_Century Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem | Model of Jerusalem in the 19th Century Towerofdavid.org.il November 27, 2013 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20131203015503/http://www.towerofdavid.org.il/English/Exhibitions/Model_of_Jerusalem_in_the_19th_Century December 3, 2013 Gallery See also New Zealand Interprovincial Exhibition (preparatory event in New Zealand) Yushima Seidō Exposition (preparatory event in Japan) References 30em External links Official website of the BIE The Rotunda of the 1873 Vienna International Exhibition https://web.archive.org/web/20171201131648/https://digital.lib.umd.edu/worldsfairs/essay?pid=umd:992 2017-12-01 Images from the exhibition 1873 Vienna (BIE World Expo) - approximately 90 links Category:1873 in Austria Category:1870s in Vienna Category:1873 festivals Category:World's fairs in Austria Category:Prater