Watch the Radio

Watch the Radio presents 120 radio receivers of all eras, most of them drawn from the MNACTEC collection. The exhibition addresses the birth and evolution of the radio receiver, a device that has over 80 years undergone an outstanding technical and aesthetic transformation, while preserving intact its overriding function: that of bringing sounds from all around the world into our homes.

The design of this popular object involves complex variables derived from physics, technology, the productive economy, radio broadcasting, fashion, social behaviour and access to sources of electrical energy.It presents the very best chapel radio designs, a radio used in homes between 1930 and 1954. The fourth section features the first transistor in the world, sold in 1955. Lastly, the fifth section, entitled "The Digitisation of the Waves" shows how digital technology is incorporated within a new concept of radio applied to mobile telephones, or the most advanced technology in the exhibition: DAB digital radio.

The exhibition can also be consulted online.