The Great Exhibition

The Great Exhibition

Combined the design industry of all nations, which was held in a place looking like something magical reflecting behind the trees, being The Crystal Palace which was nicknamed by the public due to that phenomenon. The exhibition took place in 1851 at Hyde Park, only a year after the palace started being constructed. It was the idea of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert which became real and also kick started a trail for innovative design and methods in construction of buildings. The building was tall as the trees, and even taller as it is built with an arch around them which were already there, presenting a generous act not to remove trees for new buildings, but rather use them as a medium in the idea of the design. London has never seen something like this before as buildings were built rather than constructed, also the rain was washing away the dust on the place which made it reflect in marvelous aspects as it was made of prefabricated glass and iron. This was achieved due to the recent invention of cast plate glass method in 1848. The time when The Great Exhibition shone was perfect for Britain as the manufacturing was on a high level and successful, also they had no fear of uprisings or assassinations as these were common at that time due to power and business with the industrial revolution. That was the time to show off the manufacturing success they were having, by putting up the space delivering wonders of industry from around the world in one place. The building was made by Joseph Paxton and was built by hand with a number of workers.

The purpose of the exhibition was to create an exhibition space for showcasing examples of the latest technology developed in the Industrial Revolution, and exposing differences that nations’ designs had. The amount was about 100,000 different designs.

 

America’s were also very diverse and one of the most popular attractions was the reaper by Cyrus McCormick which was manufactured in Britain but was a remarkable new machine with a huge effect on agriculture especially at the time. The Great Western Railway displayed a locomotive. The inside of the exhibition was arranged on purpose so as to show the best British inventions and for entertaining visitors while walking, church organs played the role for entertainment. The Crystal Palace was the place where first public toilets with flushing lavatory were showcased. The European designs were maybe exaggerated as they thought it was the way to get people buying the product instead of the function and price. Some British inventions were of a great importance and function, for example the first voting machine which counted votes automatically and boasted an interlocking system preventing over-voting, but their ornaments were not of high standard, without function and over decorated as mass produced products were not well. Similar ones to Europeans were from India which focused on the aesthetic rather than the worthy function value, for example a throne carved from ivory. Scotland’s invention kick started ability for blind people to understand and read languages which is still being used nowadays, as Dr Foulis’ tangible ink produced raised letters. The largest foreign contributor was France as it exhibited expensive looking attractive tapestries, Sevres porcelain and silks from Lyons, enamels from Limoges and furniture. On the other hand, British exhibits in the same class of the French, were lacking taste unlike France’s impressive display which also included examples of the machinery which their products were produced with. France was thus a competitor against Britain as it prided itself in textiles. 

This exhibition was able to reveal the difference between European and American design, as Europeans’ was ornamental, while Americans’ was mass produced and functional. Americans’ were more for the mass amount with uses, while Europeans’ were more for decoration purposes with exaggerated elements in them that disturbed the ability of using them in everyday life.

The Great Exhibition opened doors for awareness in better visions to produce better designs, and that is why William Morris rejected the idea of cheaply bad made products that were mass produced. To him, this was an insult and lack of appreciation to the design industry and was not fair for consumers, but on the other hand mass production allows objects to be more affordable and more widely available to people with different standards which were also exposed during the exhibition. The US emerged as the leader in mass production, and that is why it created the first assembly lines where factories allow workers to add certain elements to the products in an ongoing pattern. This production lost stylistic creativity and variety in the products as their quality also suffered due to lack of craftsmanship which enables the product to have a certain high attention to it bit by bit with decisions wisely taken in a process. Our current days are carrying the main potential and function of The Great Exhibition which was a great medium to design these days, for example how the standards in different nations teach each other for better products and their impacts. The Great Exhibition allowed the world to follow its footsteps with a huge impact on its legacy, being one of them in Paris that had the first in a long series of international exhibitions in 1855. In the United States, fairs were inspired by what people saw in eairly fairs in Europe, another being the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition that was held 1853-54 in also an iron-and-glass structure in Bryant Park. A specific building which was inspired by the Crystal Palace in terms of construction is "The Millennium Dome" which depicted the same aim as Paxton to enable the geodesic domes to be added or removed with the ground and adapt with the uneven and shifting ground.

Bibliography - 

British Library. 2015. The Great Exhibition. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/victorians/exhibition/greatexhibition.html. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

Wikipedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2015. The Crystal Palace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

The Victorian School. 2015. The Victorian School. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.victorianschool.co.uk/Gt_exhib.html. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

Brittanica :: The Great Exhibition and its legacy: the golden age of fairs | Encyclopedia Britannica. 2015. world's fair :: The Great Exhibition and its legacy: the golden age of fairs | Encyclopedia Britannica. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/649088/worlds-fair/301790/The-Great-Exhibition-and-its-legacy-the-golden-age-of-fairs. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

Ray White and Contributors :: 2015. 7. The Crystal Palace. [ONLINE] Available at:http://whitefiles.org/b3_q/1_architecture/zqla/qla7/7_xtlplc.htm. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

Materials Council:: London's iconic Crystal Palace reloaded ... 2015. So Transparent: London's iconic Crystal Palace reloaded ... [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/so-transparent-london-s-iconic-crystal-palace-reloaded-part-ii/7000932. [Accessed 20 April 2015].