ABSTRACT
The early Victorian Albertopolis project has been used by politicians and their agencies as an inspiration and model for a new cultural and education quarter to be developed in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, coined Olympicopolis by the outgoing Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. In the post-1851 era, the Victorian factory system also advanced, making fundamental changes to the ways in which the working population lived. The World’s Fairs had originated in the French tradition of national exhibitions, a tradition that culminated with the French imperial Industrial Exposition of 1844 held in Paris, following on from a series of great exhibitions which had begun in the seventeenth century with exhibitions of works of art. A brand new destination for London with world class culture and education at its heart. A fundamental issue in the location of state-funded cultural and educational institutions is who benefits, and how any major development contributes to cultural planning for the region and nation.
