Expo 58 Souvenir Toy Bus: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Souvenir toy bus commemorating the Exposition Universelle et Internationale held in Brussels, Belgium in 1958. Bus is orange, grey, and blue body with Mercedes Benz logos on doors and front grill.

Expo 58, held in Brussels, Belgium, in 1958, attracted about 41.5 million visitors, the most for a World’s Fair since the 1900 Paris Exposition. Its theme, “Bilan du monde pour un monde plus humain”, translated to “Assessment of the world for a more humane world”, emphasized post war Europe’s modernization in the atomic age. Reinforcing this theme, the fair’s 102 m (about 335 ft) signature landmark, the Atomium, was made to represent an iron crystal cell, with spheres and tubes symbolizing atoms in a lattice. The engineering marvel remains one of Belgium’s most iconic attractions.

The fair featured around 45 international pavilions. The United States pavilion screened Walt Disney’s Circarama film “America the Beautiful”, while the Soviet pavilion displayed full scale replicas of Sputnik satellites. Belgium’s national exhibits included the Belgian Congo display, which presented living Congolese people in a staged and degrading “human zoo.”

Corporate participants included Philips, whose Philips Pavilion presented a landmark multimedia show with electronic music. Other exhibitors included IBM, SABENA, and Ford Motor Company.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: 1958
• Object Name: Toy, Bus
• Object Name: toy
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 12.2 cm x 3.2 cm x 3.2 cm; 4 13/16 in x 1 1/4 in x 1 1/4 in
• place made: Belgium: Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, Brussels
• Associated Place: Belgium: Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest
• Subject: Expositions and Fairs
• Subject: Toys
• related event: Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles (1958)
• ID Number: 1990.0542.1504
• accession number: 1990.0542
• catalog number: 1990.0542.1504
• Credit Line: The Edward J. Orth Memorial Archives of the New York World's Fair 1939-1940
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.