JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Finding the top of the world was easier in 1851–at least to this illustration, showing the Crystal Palace of the Great Exhibition of 1851 sitting firmly in place above all. I can imagine that if you were sitting in Hyde Park along with the 1851-foot long building, it would be easy to think that you were indeed at the top of the food chain. The structure was the crowning achievement of the Exhibition: it was almost one million feet under iron and wood and glass, and could hold tens of thousands of people who could view the enormous gardens housed there.
Perhaps most astonishing of all was that the modular structure–design by Joseph Paxton–was moved three years later, in 1854, to Penge Place, where it stood until it was consumed by fire in 1936.