The Crystal palace, an example of victorian architecture. Sir Joseph Paxton who was the architect of this and created a revolution bt made this structure with cast iron and glass. Though it doesn't exist anymore, for the cause of fire in 1936. This building was served for exhibition purpose.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.

1. Queen Victoria wrote in her journal on May 1st 1851 :
"This day is one of the greatest and most glorious of our
lives… It is a day which makes my heart swell with
thankfulness… The Park presented a wonderful spectacle,
crowds streaming through it, – carriages and troops
passing… The Green Park and Hyde Park were one mass of
densely crowded human beings, in the highest good
humour… before we neared the Crystal Palace, the sun shone
and gleamed upon the gigantic edifice, upon which the flags
of every nation were flying… The sight as we came to the
centre where the steps and chair (on which I did not sit) was
placed, facing the beautiful crystal fountain was magic and
impressive. The tremendous cheering, the joy expressed in
every face, the vastness of the building, with all its decoration
and exhibits, the sound of the organ… all this was indeed
moving"
THE
CRYSTAL PALACE
Submitted by
Tonmoy Barua
132082001

2. Draw the plan of The crystal palace
Explain why and where it was built
Discuss the significance of it’s design in terms of construction technique
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass structure
originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great
Exhibition of 1851. The structure was taken down and rebuilt
(1852–54) at Sydenham Hill (now in the borough of Bromley),
at which site it survived until 1936.
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.
The building was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, an architect
and gardener, and revealed breakthroughs in architecture,
construction and design. the Great Exhibition building was
1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet
(39 m). It was three times larger than the size of St Paul's
Cathedral.
After the exhibition, it was decided to relocate the Palace to
an area of South London known as Penge Common. It was
rebuilt 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.
Why and where it was built
Significance of it’s design in terms of
construction technique
The geometry of the Crystal Palace was a classic example of
the concept of form following manufacturer's limitations- the
shape and size of the whole building was directly based
around the size of the panes of glass.
The original Hyde Park building was essentially a vast, flat-
roofed rectangular hall. A huge open gallery ran along the
main axis, with wings extending down either side.
The main exhibition space was two stories high, with the
upper floor stepped in from the boundary.
Most of the building had a flat-profile roof, except for the
central transept, which was covered by a 72 foot wide barrel-
vaulted roof that stood 168 feet high at the top of the arch.
Both the flat-profile sections and the arched transept roof
were constructed using the key element of Paxton's design -
his patented ridge-and-furrow roofing system, which had
first use at Chatsworth. The basic roofing unit, in essence,
took the form of a long triangular prism, which made it both
extremely light and very strong, and meant it could be built
with the minimum amount of materials.

3. Paxton’ design was based on a 10in x 49in module, the size of the
largest glass sheet available at the time. The modular system
consisted of right-angled triangles, mirrored and multiplied,
supported by a grid of cast iron beams and pillars. These basic
units were extremely light and strong and were extended to an
incredible length of 564 meters.
Paxton's modular, hierarchical design reflected his practical
brilliance as a designer and problem-solver. It incorporated many
breakthroughs, offered practical advantages that no conventional
building could match and, above all, embodied the spirit of British
innovation and industrial might that the Great Exhibition was
intended to celebrate.
These were the largest available at the time, measuring 10 inches
wide by 49 inches long. Because the entire building was scaled
around those dimensions, it meant that nearly the whole outer
surface could be glazed using millions of identical panes, thereby
drastically reducing both their production cost and the time
needed to install them.
Paxton set the dimensions of this prism by using the length of
single pane of glass (49 inches) of a right-angled triangle, thereby
creating a triangle with a length-to-height ratio of 2.5:1, whose
base (adjacent side) was 4 feet long. By mirroring this triangle he
obtained the 8-foot-wide gables that formed the vertical faces at
either end of the prism, each of which was 24' long. With this
arrangement, Paxton could glaze the entire roof surface with
identical panes that did not need to be trimmed.
Paxton placed three of these 8' x 24' roof units side-by-side,
horizontally supported by a grid of cast iron beams, which
was held up on slim cast iron pillars. The resulting cube, with
a floor area of 24'x 24', formed the basic structural module
of the building.
By multiplying these modules into a grid, the structure could
be extended virtually infinitely. In its original form, the
ground level of the Crystal Palace (in plan) measured 1848' x
456', which equates to a grid 77 modules long by 19
modules wide. Because each module was self-supporting,
Paxton was able to leave out modules in some areas,
creating larger square or rectangular spaces within the
building to accommodate larger exhibits.
On the lower level these larger spaces were covered by the
floor above, and on the upper level by longer spans of
roofing, but the dimensions of these larger spaces were
always multiples of the basic 24' x 24' grid unit. The modules
were also strong enough to be stacked vertically, enabling
Paxton to add an upper floor that nearly doubled the
amount of available exhibition space. Paxton also used
longer trellis girders to create a clear span for the roof of the
immense central gallery, which was 72 feet wide and 1800
feet long.
Significance of it’s design in terms of
construction technique

4. A tree enclosed within the Crystal Palace.
The last major components to be put into place were the
sixteen semi-circular ribs of the vaulted transept, which
were also the only major structural parts that were made of
wood.
These were raised into position as eight pairs, and all were
fixed into place within a week.
The entire structure was assembled with extraordinary
speed—the team of 80 glaziers could fix more than 18,000
panes of sheet glass in a week and the building was
complete and ready to receive exhibits in just five months.
When completed, The Crystal Palace provided an unrivaled
space for exhibits, since it was essentially a self-supporting
shell standing on slim iron columns, with no internal
structural walls whatsoever. Because it was covered almost
entirely in glass, it also needed no artificial lighting during
the day, thereby reducing the Exhibition's running costs.
Significance of it’s design in terms of
construction technique

5. PLAN OF CRYSTAL PALACE