The Great Exhibition - The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace is considered to be the first world's fair - The Great Exhibition of 1851.

This Exhibition took place in the Crystal Palace. It is known that this Great Exhibition was created by Prince Albert together with Henry Cole. The whole building was enormous with dimensions of 1,848 feet long and 408 feet wide.

The Crystal Palace has been originally designed by Sir Joseph Paxton. It had that Victorian Style. The building has been made with iron and prefabricated glass. After the Great Exhibition which got to an end in October 1851, Sir Joseph Paxton decided to move everything to Penge Place Estate, Sydenham as a 'Winter Park and Garden under Glass'.

Plan of the Crystal Palace

Countries had their exhibits. Countries included France, United States, Russia, Turkey and Egypt. Every country was divided into four main categories which included: raw materials, machinery, manufacturers and fine arts. Technology and moving machinery were popular especially working exhibits. Visitors could watch the cotton production from spinning to a finished cloth as well as scientific instruments which included microscopes, air pumps, barometers and others.

After the Great Exhibition closed, the Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham Hill in South London and was reconstructed. The Crystal Palace was reopened in June 1854 by Queen Victoria.

The palace and its grounds became the world's fair theme park including entertainment, a roller coaster, cricket matches and more. Not to forget to mention that there were also homes to displays, festivals, music and shows. The Crystal Palace was so popular that over 13,000 exhibits were displayed and it was viewed by millions of visitors. However, not to forget to mention that although that time the Crystal Palace was very popular, it fell into financial crisis and this building was spelt by a series of fire. In 1861, the building was damaged by strong winds which then in December 1866 a fire broke out and destroyed the North End of the building including many natural history exhibits.

The palace saw many successful years and millions of visitors; having said that, the Crystal Palace fell into some sort of financial problems. It was impossible to maintain because of its size which this led to its failure in 1911.

It was the night on 30th November 1936 when the palace was destroyed with fire. A small fire was escalated and a huge fire broke out across the building.

After the fire in 1936

Some of its original remains can still be seen today. These include terraces, sphinxes, set of stairs, remains of the aquarium and the huge bust of Sir Joseph Paxton.

The remains of the salt water aquarium, Crystal Palace

References:

• Artifice.Incs, 1994. Crystal Palace [online] Available at: http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Crystal_Palace.html [accessed 29th October 2013]

• Victorian Station, 1999. The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace [online] Available at: http://www.victorianstation.com/palace.html [accessed 29th October 2013]

• BBC, 2008. Crystal Palace [image online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2004/07/27/history_feature.shtml [accessed 30th October 2013]