The Palace and Park: Its Natural History, and Its Portrait Gallery, Together with a Description of the Pompeian CourtLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
History
The Palace and Park: Its Natural History, and Its Portrait Gallery, Together with a Description of the Pompeian Court
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Crystal Palace (Sydenham, London, England)
galleries towards the garden front, the long wings stretching forth on
either side--produce a play of light and shade, and break the building
into parts, which, without in any way detracting from the grandeur and
simplicity of the whole construction, or causing the parts themselves to
appear mean or small, present a variety of surface that charms and fully
satisfies the eye.
[4] We do not know any name more suitable to express the character of
this iron and glass building than that which we have chosen. In Gothic
architecture we have named one style “Early English,” and we think we
may with equal propriety confer the title of “Modern English” upon the
new order, which is essentially the creation of the nineteenth
century, and which served to house one of the greatest national
displays that England ever attempted--THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851.
The erection of the building both of 1851 and of 1854, it may be well
to remark, is mainly due to the rapid advances made in this country in
the manufactures of glass and iron, substances which with only
moderate attention will defy the effects of time. The present
structure is capable of enduring longer than the oldest marble or
stone architectural monuments of antiquity. The iron, which forms its
skeleton or framework, becomes, when painted, the most indestructible
of materials, and the entire covering of glass may be renewed again
and again without in any way interfering with the construction which
it covers.
[Illustration: OPEN GALLERY TOWARDS THE GARDEN FRONT.]
Unity in architecture is one of the most requisite and agreeable of its
qualities: and certainly no building possesses it in a greater degree
than the Crystal Palace. Its design is most simple: one portion
corresponds with another; there is no introduction of needless ornament:
a simplicity of treatment reigns throughout. Nor is this unity confined
to the building. It characterises the contents of the glass structure,
and prevails in the grounds. All the component parts of the Exhibition
blend, yet all are distinct: and the effect of the admirable and
harmonious arrangement is, that all confusion in the vast establishment,
within and without, is avoided. “The mighty maze” has not only its plan,
but a plan of the most lucid and instructive kind, and the visitor is
enabled to examine every court, whether artistic or industrial; every
object, whether of nature or of art, in regular order; so that, as in a
well-arranged book, he may proceed from subject to subject at his
discretion, and derive useful information without the trouble and
vexation of working his way through a labyrinth.
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