The Mundaneum and Geneva

8 July 2022

What do Google, the Mundaneum and a new World City near Geneva have in common?

The Mundaneum

The story begins at the end of the nineteenth century in Belgium. Paul Otlet (1868-1944) and Henri La Fontaine (1854-1943) sought to establish a World Library encompassing all books, iconography, newspapers, magazines, and other written materials.

This library, Mundaneum, was founded in 1920. It was housed in the Parc du Cinquantenaire (Jubelpark) in Brussels and occupied one hundred rooms, covering many kilometres of paper.

This library still exists and is a universal bibliographic centre today. The Mundaneum was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. The Mundaneum moved to Mons (Bergen) in 1998.

The Mundaneum is called the Internet of Paper and is the predecessor of Google. Google supports the project financially. 

Geneva

The sculptor, painter, and urban planner Hendrik C. Anderson (1872-1940), and the architect, urban planner, and archaeologist Ernest Hébrard (1875-1933) developed a plan in 1913 to build a world city.

This city was the centre of international communication and dispute resolution for the sake of peace and prosperity. All people and countries were to be represented.

The founders of the Mundaneum supported the project. The Three Lakes region in Switzerland (the area of the lakes of Neuchâtel (Neuenburgersee), Biel (Bienne), Murten (Morat) and Brussels emerged as a location option.

Then came August 1, 1914, and the plan was off the table. However, after the end of the First World War (1914-1918), the League of Nations and its headquarters in Geneva gave new hope.

In 1927, Paul Otlet approached the architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887-1965) to design a new plan for the city near Geneva. Then came the stock market crisis of 1929 and the subsequent economic and political crises and tensions.

Statues at the entry of the City. Collection Schlossmuseum Nidau. Photo: TES.

The world city never progressed beyond the design on paper. The entrance to the metropolis bears the hallmarks of the time’s style. The town, symmetrically built according to a strict grid pattern (as in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle in the canton of Neuchâtel), featured a 320-metre tower that symbolised human progress.

However, it became a Tower of Babel due to the Second World War (1939-1945) and the Cold War. After 1945 and the death of the Mundaneum’s founders, the project for the metropolis was abandoned.

(Source: www.mundaneum.org/ Schlossmuseum Nidau: www.schlossmuseumnidau.ch).