The Crystal Palace
| The Crystal Palace | |
|---|---|
The Crystal Palace at Sydenham (1854)
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| General information | |
| Status | Destroyed |
| Type | Exhibition palace |
| Architectural style | Victorian |
| Town or city | London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Destroyed | 30 November 1936 (fire) |
| Cost | £2 million |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Joseph Paxton |
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass structure originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000-square-foot (92,000 m2) exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m). The invention of the cast plate glass method in 1848 made possible the production of large sheets of cheap but strong glass, and its use in the Crystal Palace created a structure with the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building and astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights.
The name of the building resulted from a piece penned by the playwright Douglas Jerrold, who in July 1850 wrote in the satirical magazine Punch about the forthcoming Great Exhibition, referring to a "palace of very crystal".
After the exhibition, it was decided to relocate the Palace to an area of South London to be rebuilt on Penge Common, at the top of Penge Peak next to Sydenham Hill, an affluent suburb of large villas. It stood there from 1854 until its destruction by fire in 1936. The nearby residential area was renamed Crystal Palace after the famous landmark including the park that surrounds the site, home of the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, which had previously been a football stadium that hosted the FA Cup Final between 1895 and 1914. Crystal Palace F.C. were founded at the site in 1905 and played at the Cup Final venue in their early years. The park still contains Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins's Crystal Palace Dinosaurs which date back to 1854.
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