1939/40 Centennial Exhibition Revisited Online

NZHistorynet.

Re-live the highlights of the extraordinary 1939/40 Centennial Exhibition by visiting the Internal Affairs Heritage Group website, NZHistorynet.

The Centennial Exhibition, a massive Expo-like extravaganza held on 22 hectares of land at Lyall Bay, adjacent to Wellington's airport, is the subject of NZ Historynet's latest on line exhibition. http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/gallery/centennial/index.

In six a month period during 1939/40 over 2 million people visited the Centennial Exhibition, more visitors than Te Papa attracted in it's first year.

Some came to be educated by the historical and international displays, but most came for the fun of Playland. Here they found a range of entertainments, including the impressive Cyclone roller coaster, the Crazy House, dodgem cars and the human freaks of the 'Odditorium'.

This online exhibition provides a history of the exhibition through text, sound, film and photographs. It includes a colour film produced by the Exhibition's architect, Edward Anscombe and Radio New Zealand documentaries and broadcasts about the event.

An important feature of this exhibition is that it incorporates recommendations from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for maximising access to web-based information for people with visual or other disabilities. It is hoped that it will serve as an example for other web developers and prompt them to incorporate these often neglected guidelines into their designs.

The exhibition is provided by the Heritage Group of the Department of Internal Affairs and can be found at their website: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/gallery/centennial/index.

The Heritage Group ends it's long association with the Department of Internal Affairs on July 1 when it officially transfers to the new Ministry of Culture and Heritage.

for further information contact Pamela Fleming media adviser, 025 575676

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