My Tech How-To

Beaubourg takes on the allure of a folk museum as the tools and gadgetry that have transformed domestic life since 1900 replace a shadowy display of primitive pots and instruments. Arranged in roughly chronological style-groups come irons, fires, electric fans, washing and sewing machines, cameras and TVs, hairdryers and telephones and gramophones, alongside pieces of archive footage and some superb advertising posters. All fun enough, but it sorely lacks a few pointers – which were the innovative ones, the first, the most technical, the best-sellers, the failures – to render the sheer cacophony of objects more intelligible.