A quiz question · medium
The Crystal Palace — the enormous cast-iron and plate-glass building that housed the Great Exhibition — went up in Hyde Park in 1851. Joseph Paxton designed it. How long did construction take from approval of his design to opening day?
Six months. Paxton, the head gardener of Chatsworth House, sketched his design after the official architectural competition's 245 entries had been rejected by the committee. His back-of-an-envelope drawing was approved in two weeks; construction began in autumn 1850; the Exhibition opened on 1 May 1851. The building was 1,851 feet long (deliberately, for the year), used 293,655 panes of glass, and was the largest enclosed space built anywhere in the world up to that point.
Read the full story →From the story
The Glass Building the Victorians Built in Six Months and Burned Down in Six Hours The Crystal Palace housed the Great Exhibition of 1851, was moved to a south London hill, and stood there for eighty-five years. On the night of 30 November 1936 it caught fire and burned to the ground in a single evening. Two hundred thousand people watched.
Related questions
- After the Great Exhibition closed in October 1851, the Crystal Palace was dismantled, moved to a south London hill, and reassembled at larger scale. It stood there for the next 82 years. How did it end?
- What engineering trick did 1850s Chicago use to raise its entire downtown?
- The Lighthouse of Alexandria — the Pharos — was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. About how tall was it, and how long did it stand?
- For which pharaoh was the Great Pyramid of Giza built?