The Crystal Palace
The Great Exhibition which was exhibited in the 1851s was the most viewed exhibition of the exhibition. As the Crystal Palace was only open for just five months, in a short period of time, around six million people visited the Crystal Palace, this happened all thanks to the railways. People visited not only just to wonder at the fabulous array of beautiful objects from around the world, but to have a closer look of the building itself. With the amount of glass the crystal palace has, it isn’t surprising that the Crystal Palace designer Joseph Paxton was the best known for his conservatory designs. This Crystal Palace was also a greenhouse on an unknown scale, a cathedral of glass. Parts and sections of the Crystal Palace were named after cathedral architecture; the cross wings part was called transepts. The transepts part was completely prefabricated; its glass and cast iron were made in a factory in the Midlands and the North. The designs of the Crystal Palace were approved in less than eleven months and so the building was completed, the Crystal Palace is 560 meters long, 120 meters wide and 33 meters high.
The Crystal Palace
has been re-erected at Sydenham, and was used to a show a variety of Ancient
and exotic art, also showing botanical specimens from all around the world. As
it was no longer in Hyde Park, it was we still easy to access by railway; this
became a popular day trip destination, as the print making designs portray.
Joseph Paxton used to be an English Gardener, designer, writer and creator of most of the buildings of the Victoria’s reign in the Crystal Palace. Paxton was born on the 3rd of August 1803 in Bedfordshire, into a farming family. Paxton had multiple gardening jobs till in 1823 he started working at Chiswick Gardens which was granted by the Horticultural Society from the Duke of Devonshire. The duke was very impressed with Paxton’s work, to this duke appointed Paxton to be the Head Gardener at Chatsworth House, which was the Devonshire family’s big country house in Devonshire. Paxton designed gardens, fountains, a model village and an arboretum at Chatsworth House. Paxton also built a conservatory, which was also known as the Great Conservatory and a lily, which was designed for a huge lily with a design, which was design based on the leaves of the plant. Paxton in the end got married to the Chatsworth’s Housekeeper’s niece, which she was named Sarah Bown. Paxton’s fame started with the Great Exhibition in 1851. Paxton had made 245 plans for the main exhibition but all of his plans were being examined and rejected. While Paxton was visiting London at that time he heard about the difficulties. After a few days have passed he later on delivered a design, which was a vastly magnified version of his lily house at Chatsworth. To be done it was cheap, simple to erect and to be removed and could be built very quickly. Its novelty was its revolutionary, modular, prefabricated design and the extensive use of glass. The crystal Palace to be built took about 2,000 men and a period of eight months construction work.
Although there was a
widespread of cynicism with press and public, the great exhibition still opened
up on May 1851 and it was a huge success. In October, Paxton was knighted by
Victoria. As soon as the Exhibition finished, the Crystal Palace was dismantled
in Sydenham in South London, where it was still there until the Crystal Palace
burnt down in 1936. Paxton although the Crystal Palace had burnt down he still
stayed as Head Gardener at Chatsworth, but that wasn’t his only project, aside
he had multiple other projects,; working on the layout of the public parks,
helping with suggested improvements for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and
designing a country house, Mentmore Towers for Baron Mayer de Rothschild.
Paxton than became a rich wealthy man through successful speculations in the
booming railway industry and later Paxton died on the 8th of June in
1865 in Sydenham.
References:
- The Crystal Palace. 2013. The Crystal Palace. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.architecture.com/HowWeBuiltBritain/HistoricalPeriods/Victorian/LeisureAndPleasure/TheCrystalPalace.aspx. [Accessed 03 April 2013].
- BBC - History - Historic Figures: Joseph Paxton (1803 - 1865). 2013. BBC - History - Historic Figures: Joseph Paxton (1803 - 1865). [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/paxton_joseph.shtml. [Accessed 03 April 2013].
- Joseph Paxton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Joseph Paxton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Paxton. [Accessed 03 April 2013].
- The Great Stove, Chatsworth. 2013. The Great Stove, Chatsworth. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/iron/21b.html. [Accessed 03 April 2013].
- Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins Andrew Haswell Green Boss Tweed. 2013. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins Andrew Haswell Green Boss Tweed. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.copyrightexpired.com/hawkins/nyc/Benjamin_Waterhouse_Hawkins.html. [Accessed 03 April 2013].
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