Abstract

Museums and exhibitions of science and technology have received considerable attention in recent historiography. However, little has been done to look beyond individual localities and national borders. Using Yehuda Elkana's concept of “images of knowledge,” this article shows how a comparison of four interwar projects located across Europe - in Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Switzerland - helps to highlight commonalities in the understanding of science at the time. Although these exhibition projects were located in different political systems and their proponents superficially presented irreconcilable ideas about science, their ideas about progress or the need to overcome national and disciplinary boundaries show a preponderance of similarities. However, the political-ideological divide is visible in the way they conceive of the relationship between science and society. Finally, by looking at how images of knowledge were co-produced at the interface of science, architecture, and politics, this article argues for a broadening of the source base to include non-scientific and non-human actors.