«Old London»: Reconstruction of a XVIIth Century Street at Exhibitions of the 1880s

Abstract

The article analyzes the experience of an original exhibition experiment – the reconstruction of XVII th century buildings at the sites of international exhibitions of the 1880s in London. The circumstances of the origin of the idea and implementation in South Kensington «Streets of Old London» are considered. It was an eclectic set of buildings that really existed in the British capital before the 1666 Great Fire and reproduced in almost original form in 1884. Based on exhibition documents, press publications and photographs, a description is given to the appearance of the «street» and its place within the expositions. Based on photographs and printed sources, a description of the buildings themselves is given: typical urban residential buildings, shops, churches, etc. It is concluded that this example illustrates the educational function of the thematic exhibitions in London, their close interweaving with the problems of the city's architecture, as well as the temporality and transiency of such structures. The last is a characteristic feature of the exhibition space.