Sir Joseph Paxton?EUR??,,????'?????<

Queen Victoria was on hand to open Joseph Paxton?EUR??,,????'?????<

 

Many have heard of the Crystal Palace (Palace of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations), essentially a gigantic greenhouse of 33,000 cast-iron trusses framing 293,655 panes of glass, with tens of thousands of feet of wood flooring. At 1,851 long (to coincide with the year it was built), 408 feet across and almost 110 feet tall at its central apex, it was the largest building in the world at the time.

In Bill Bryson?EUR??,,????'?????<At Home: A Short History of Private Life), a definite recommended read, he notes the open design competition for a great exhibition building garnered 245 designs, all of which were rejected by the Royal Commission!

When Joseph Paxton, a head gardener for the Duke of Devonshire?EUR??,,????'?????<

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Architectural consultants noted Paxton had no training in architecture. Paxton had, however, already designed and installed an enormous tropical cast-iron framed greenhouse (the Great Stove) for the Duke of Devonshire. Great Stove was so large that Queen Victoria toured its interior plant collection in a horse-drawn carriage. Paxton also designed and installed for the duke the Emperor Fountain in 1844, a spectacular achievement of hydraulic engineering that jetted water 290 feet high, an unprecedented marvel of its time.

Despite his lack of engineering ?EUR??,,????'?????<

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