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Every country has someting unique to add to the common heritage of mankind. This may be natural sites, manmade structures or other cultural artefacts. Numerous surveys show that tourists put nature or natural phenomena at the top pf the list of attractions that pulled them to Iceland. Icelanders themselves on the other hand, traditionally pride themselves the most on Icelandic literature, ancient and modern.
The Culture House - National Centre for Cultural Heritage in Reykjavík City Centre is a unique venue for promoting Icelandic history and heritage. It was erected a century ago to house Iceland's national collections, but is now a state-run venue for exhibits and events. This distinctive status has given the Culture House the opportunity to cooperate with different cultural institutions regarding exhibitions of national treasures of various kinds.
Current exhibitions at the Culture House reflect this status in an outstanding manner: The Medieval Manuscripts - Eddas and Sagas is an informative and attractive exhibition focusing in the cultural and political role played by the Icelandic medieval manuscripts from their earliest days to the present. The poetry and prose works preserved in these manuscripts are the richest evidence of the culture and mentalities of Northern Europeans in pagan times - making them one of Iceland's most important contributions to the universal heritage of mankind.
The multimedia exhibition Surtsey - Genesis traces the emergence and evolution of the island Surtsey from the onset of the 1963 - 1967 oceanic eruption until the present day and predicts its geographical and ecological development over the next 120 years. The exhibition explains the grounds for the decicion made by Icelandic authorities to nominate Surtsey to UNESCO's World Heritage List as a universally unique natural phenomenon.
The two elements: nature and literature, come togetger in an exhibit that will be opened in November 2007, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of the natural scientist and the most loved and admired poet of modern Iceland; Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807-1845).