This volume covers one of the most influential buildings of the 19th century. Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace was the first public building to omit references to the past. Amid the historicist debates and "battle of the styles" of mid-19th-century Britain, Paxton's design was rational and straightforward. His glass-and-iron palace for London's international exhibition was epoch-making in its construction. The 1800-foot-long building was designed to be assembled on site from factory-made parts; its construction required 293 ...
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This volume covers one of the most influential buildings of the 19th century. Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace was the first public building to omit references to the past. Amid the historicist debates and "battle of the styles" of mid-19th-century Britain, Paxton's design was rational and straightforward. His glass-and-iron palace for London's international exhibition was epoch-making in its construction. The 1800-foot-long building was designed to be assembled on site from factory-made parts; its construction required 293,655 plates of glass and 24 miles of guttering. The resulting masterpiece of prefabrication provoked a contemporary commentator to remark: "the Crystal Palace is a revolution in architectural form, from which a new style will date".
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