Der Suezkanal: Zwischen Ingenieurskunst und Kolonialismus

Preview: written before the show opened

When the canal opened in 1869, the sea route from Trieste, the Habsburg Monarchy's main port, to Mumbai got about 12,900 kilometres shorter. This small display asks why Austria, which had no colonies of its own, wanted in, and what it gained.

It is built from the estate of Alois Negrelli, the Austrian engineer who helped plan the canal, kept in the museum's own archive and transcribed in a multi-year research project. Diaries, photographs, maps and short explainer videos cover an Austrian expedition to Egypt and the Habsburg engineers and firms caught up in colonial networks. You find it inside the permanent Material Worlds exhibition, right beside the rubber section and its colonial history.

It's a compact intervention, included in the €18 museum ticket, and under-19s get in free. The museum's online exhibition [re]framing Colonial Infrastructures has the full research.