THE VIEW FROM KING STREET
The Crystal Palace
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CHRISTOPHER HURST admits to sharing a not uncommon obsession — with one remarkable building that burnt to the ground nearly 70 years ago.
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ON the morning of December 1,1936, aged not quite seven, I was told that the Crystal Palace had burnt down during the previous night. We lived 30 miles away to the west, and while I slept the older members of the household watched from upper windows as the tremendous blaze on Sydenham Hill in south London lit up the night sky. It was even seen from Brighton 50 miles away on the south coast. Members of Parliament left a debate and crowded the committee rooms and riverside terrace to watch. Some said the flames had leaped 300 feet into the air, while others claimed 500 feet. The fire was only the final phase in a legend; everything about the Crystal Palace was prodigious. This colossal structure of iron and glass, despite the gradual decay and depletion it suffered over the 82 years of its existence, had not lost its ability to amaze. For the historically minded there was scarcely a more potent and direct link to the High Victorian era of boundless national ambition and self-confidence. For those interested in architecture, its straight lines, intersecting barrel-vaults and pre-fabricated construction made it a forerunner (by many years) of the Modern Movement, far removed from the generally derivative styles of mid-19th Century public buildings. The public at large, and Londoners especially, felt its demise as a personal loss: it had belonged in a peculiar way to them. Since the earliest days it had been known as "the People's Palace".
The Sydenham Crystal Palace owed its existence to the building, also called the Crystal Palace, erected to house the Great Exhibition held from May to October 1851 in London's Hyde Park. The brain-child of Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert, this was a show-case, publicly funded, for the world's "art manufactures",* and in Albert's conception also intended to promote peace and understanding between the nations. It was in a long line of such events through the 19th and into the 20th Century, but was generally conceded to be the most spectacular and successful of the lot. From the large profits of the Exhibition a whole new area of London was laid out immediately to the south — among the renowned institutions there are the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College.
It was said at the time that as many people were drawn to the Great Exhibition by the Crystal Palace itself as by what it contained. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. Although several eminent architects, artists and scholars were involved in its creation and made their own important contributions, the presiding genius was Joseph Paxton (1803-65). This man of humble origins had been a protégé of the rich and powerful Duke of Devonshire, and had designed a great conservatory at Chatsworth, the ducal seat. Its function required it to be built of iron and glass, and he adapted the principle to the quite different design required for the Exhibition building in Hyde Park. Crudely, the latter was a huge box, 1,848 feet long and 480 broad, employing the same materials. Across the centre was a vaulted transept — the terminology of "nave" and "transept" was used from the beginning because of the structure's cathedral-like dimensions.
While the Exhibition lasted, the Palace became a popular venue — the number of admission tickets sold topped six million — and in consequence Londoners were reluctant to see it disappear when the show was over. However it had been agreed in advance with the local residents that the site would be returned to nature. As soon as Parliament decided on the Palace's demolition, a commercial company was formed, involving railway promoters and other entrepreneurs, to bring its successor to being. Paxton, with his near-megalomaniac vision, remained the dynamo of the enterprise, but another genius involved in the first Crystal Palace — Owen Jones*, a pioneer theorist of colour — was the greatest inspiration for what became the new Crystal Palace's aim: to bring art and education to the people.
The company bought a large estate on the summit of Sydenham Hill, and the dismantled remains of the first Palace were laboriously brought up to the new site. The new Palace used twice as much glass as its predecessor, and the enclosed space was half as great again. Perhaps the most astonishing dimension was the height of the central transept: 168 feet. Vastness was also a feature of the park, with its terraces, cascades and fountains, which Paxton expected to rival Versailles. Two of the fountains could send jets 280 feet into the air. While it is the building that fascinates posterity most, the lavish furnishing of the interior with "courts", each containing loving reconstructions of the art and architecture of a great historical civilisation: ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Pompeii, Byzantium, the Alhambra, the Italian Renaissance, and others, deserve to be remembered. There were tropical plants, forming a "winter garden", and in the park sensational life-size models of prehistoric creatures: these have survived. New railway lines and two stations were built to serve the Palace.
The new Palace was opened by Queen Victoria in June 1854, and for about 10 years the initial impetus remained. Here the royal pair entertained Napoleon III and Eugénie of France, Garibaldi addressed his supporters, and a great parade was held before the Queen at the conclusion of the Crimean War. In 1861 the incomparable Blondin performed on a tight-rope high up in the great transept, and throughout that season he drew 1,800,000 spectators. Starting in 1865, and continuing till 1936, there were "artistic" firework displays. The Palace had a thriving musical life: Handel Festivals with appropriately big choral and orchestral forces were held — what better place to sing the Halleluiah Chorus? — and the "Saturday concerts" first introduced many now-standard works to the repertoire.
The first decade was the best. Thereafter constant financial difficulties and general wear-and-tear took their toll. A fire in 1866 destroyed the north transept, which was never rebuilt. Sport and popular amusements came to have precedence over cultural events, and the once-splendid "courts" became colonised by more mundane activities. In the 1914-18 war the Palace became a naval training establishment, and in 1920-4 was the temporary home of the newly-founded Imperial War Museum. In the 1920s and 30s an imaginative director brought about a revival of activity and profitability, but some contemporary accounts of its condition paint a melancholy picture. On the night of November 30, 1936 a fire started — no one knows exactly where or how — and in a short time the pride of Paxton, Owen Jones and Victorian England had been consumed.
Today, nearly 70 years later, the site remains largely vacant and unused, but in great contrast to this scene of desolation is the thriving Crystal Palace Foundation, which has a museum, conducts walks over the site, and publishes a newsletter. For its hundreds of fervently enthusiastic members, some of whom can confidently be said to fall into the category of "anoraks" discussed in my last article, the Crystal Palace is their life, and its loss in a different age is felt as if it happened yesterday. If the Palace had not already disappeared, it is a big question whether it could have survived the aerial bombing of London in the 1939-45 war; such a target would have been too tempting.
On February 2, 2004 an exhibition opened at the delightful Dulwich Picture Gallery, not far away, to mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of the second Crystal Palace. Its curator is J.R. Piggott, formerly Head of English but still very active as Archivist at the highly respected private boys' secondary school Dulwich College. On the basis of years of spare-time study of the subject, he has written a beautiful book, just published to coincide with the exhibition.
Here I have to declare an interest. Several years ago I met Jan Piggott, and as soon as he mentioned his plans for this exhibition I said I would like to publish a book to accompany it. My interest naturally increased when he told me that although many books have been published about the 1851 Great Exhibition, there had never been one of any merit on the Sydenham Palace. "I have got lots of marvellous pictures," he said. This made me a little nervous because my firm has never published an illustrated book, which Piggott's was going to be as opposed to a book containing a few illustrations; but he assured me that it would be a solid historical text, as indeed it is. My firm has been deeply involved in its production from the beginning, and now the book is out. The pictures are indeed marvellous, and are perhaps the reason why, although the exhibition is excellent, I myself get the odd feeling that the book is bigger: once inside it, you feel the whole amazing, colossal, mysterious thing come to life. Now we wait for every Crystal Palace fanatic to come forward and buy a copy. This time, instead of my email, I will sign off with the firm's website: www.hurstpub.co.uk.
* A significant part was played by the display of Indian fabrics in the campaign of Owen Jones to educate the eye and teach the public to understand colour and ornament. Together with Pugin and other artists, architects and critics, he praised these in contrast to the luxurious and vulgar French fabrics on view. At the close of the Exhibition a collection of Indian fabrics and crafts was made from those on show for what became the Victoria and Albert Museum, to teach design.
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