Internationalist Utopias of Visual Education: The Graphic and Scenographic Transformation of the Universal Encyclopaedia in the Work of Paul Otlet, Patrick Geddes, and Otto Neurath

During the interwar period, the encyclopaedia became a popular educative instrument for demonstrating knowledge. Within the field of cultural internationalism, the pioneer of documentation Paul Otlet redefined the encyclopaedia as a documentary product or as we would say today a “multi-media” product. This article discusses the exchange of ideas between Otlet, Patrick Geddes and Otto Neurath and shows how the graphic and scenographic demonstration of encyclopaedic knowledge at the beginning of the twentieth century applied the values of scientific universalism to programs of international education and cultural reform.