The Great Exhibition: A Reflective Study

Summary of project

I have always been interested in history, and so when it came to deciding what to write for my dissertation it was obvious it had to be something based on the history of design. At first I decided to write my dissertation on how the British Empire influenced design, but this turned out to be far too broad a subject for a 6000 word dissertation. After reading into the subject further I decided to concentrate on the influence that India had on British design, specifically during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901). I chose India because not only have I been there twice and have a great interest in the country, but also became a major part of the British Empire.

The key thing that I want to investigate is The Great Exhibition

Arjun Appadurai is a cultural theorist who writes about the ‘cultural dimensions’ in globalisation, how do different cultures affect and influence each other. One of the main areas that Appadurai focuses on is migration, but what is particularly interesting is that he says migration isn’t limited to the movement of people, but also applies to ideas, values and life style (in which case The Great Exhibition could be seen as a mass migration). I have looked at quite a few reviews for this text to try and gauge how reliable it is, as far as I can tell it is very reliable with many interesting ideas. Instead of the thinking historians normally engage in he talks about what he coins landscapes, five different threads that weave together to influence each other to form out communities and

An imperial vision: Indian architecture and Britain’s Raj, Delhi ; Oxford : Oxford University press 2002.

Although there aren’t many examples of Indian influenced architecture in Britain there are many in India itself, this book looks at the social reasons the British architects had to create the Indo-Saracenic style that it became to be called.

It also looks at the new types of architecture that was developed due to the climate, such as bungalows and verandas, which became common throughout the empire. “An Imperial Vision, by its focus upon the relationships of culture and power that underlay the colonial order, throws light on the distinctive nature of late nineteenth-century imperialism, and more generally, on the way political authority takes shape in monumental architecture.” (3)

Crill, Rosemary; Crang, Phil; Breward, Christopher.British Asian style: fashion & textiles, past & present, London : V&A 2010.

As textile design is one of the main areas I am looking at it is important to have a good, reliable source of information for this subject, as this book is produced by the V&A I know that it is trustworthy. It explores in detail how trends and design changed over time and what in Asian cultures caused these changes. “South Asian textiles have shaped British fashion and dress for centuries, from the fashionable chintzes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through the silk and paisley Boteh patterns of the nineteenth century, to the orientalism