The Great Exhibition - The Crystal Palace

During the late 19^th century Britain was experiencing a manufacturing boom which was caused by the industrial revolution. Queen’s Victoria’s Husband, Prince Albert wanted to organise an exhibition which showcased the wonders of modern industry and manufacturing which comes from all around the world. This idea came in the ideal time of the industrial revolution to show off the capabilities of modern manufacturing in international scale.

The Great exhibition needed a suitable place for the organisation of this event. The government issued a competition for designer to design a suitable venue to host this event. In the end there were 248 proposal plans for the hosting building of the great exhibition but every one of them was rejected by the building committee. The committee itself tried to design their own version of the hosting building but their final design which was published in May of 1850 was not suitable and ideal for this project. Their proposal would have taken 15 months to build and needed around 15 million bricks for construction. The scheduled date for the opening of the great exhibition was 1st May of 1851. With the design which was proposed by the committee it was almost impossible to make it in time.

Joseph Plaxton initial drawings

After the design was marked as inconvenient for the building of the great exhibition another plan was introduced by another design. Joseph Plaxton was a designer which was building greenhouses for the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth during the time. His design was based on the design of greenhouses which was proposed to be built by gigantic pre-fabricated components. Apart from the reason of the construction material, the structure of the crystal palace was going to be built in a shorter period of time.

The steel structure and prefabricated components can be compared to the construction methods that architects and builders use today for the fast growing city construction that is going on especially in major cities around the world.

The building of the Crystal Place was built from a skeleton made of columns manufactured from cast iron with more cast iron structure support. The components of the Crystal Palace were fabricated in Birmingham, A city which was widely known for manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution. The crystal palace used glass for its outer shell. The removal of tax on glass which was removed a few years before the building of the industrial revolution, made it easier and cheaper for the manufacturers to produce the amount of glass needed for the Crystal Palace. The outer shell of the crystal palace used 300,000 sheets of glass for its construction.

During the construction, the new technology in construction materials, tools and machinery helped to ease the construction of the Crystal palace. The new invention of the steam engine helped to further develop construction tools to be used for construction. These developments can be considered as the beginning of a long journey of technological upgrades when it comes to tools and machinery.

During the construction of the Crystal palace, the invention of the telegraph was a key element during the time of construction. The telegraph enabled rapid communication between the site of construction and the manufacturers. In less than 9 months, the Crystal Palace rose and was ready for exhibition over 100,000 objects during the great exhibition.

Reference :

The Crystal Palace - Victoria and Albert Museum. 2014. The Crystal Palace - Victoria and Albert Museum. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-crystal-palace/. [Accessed 26 January 2014].

The Great Exhibition. 2014. The Great Exhibition. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/victorians/exhibition/greatexhibition.html. [Accessed 26 January 2014].