The previous food-related timeline in the museum’s 20th Century Gallery will instead feature "disappearing local icons".
This is the biggest single change at the gallery since the museum reopened to the public in early December 2012, after a $37.5million redevelopment.
The changes would also provide a trip down memory lane, "reminding us of things that were part of our everyday lives in an ever changing 20th century", a museum spokesman said.
Some items in an "object wall" at the display had been "due for a rest", and museum director Jennifer Evans said some delicate items could be displayed for only a limited time, to limit potential damage from exposure to light.
Curator Peter Read said that many names and places that were "once synonymous with 20th-century Dunedin are now gone".
The woollen mills had fallen silent, and foundries and engineering works had become few, he said.St George, the former McLeod Bros soap factory and Arthur Barnett were no longer household names.
"Many significant buildings and structures, such as the Stock Exchange building and Carisbrook, have fallen victim to the march of progress," Mr Read said.
Only a certain generation of people would remember Penrose’s Lamson system for sending small items round the department store via pneumatic tubes, or how Dunedin’s roads looked before the one-way system was introduced, he said.
The display will open for the public tomorrow at 10am.
