Joseph Paxton designed the Crystal Palace to house the Great Exhibition, which ran from May 1 to October 15, 1851, in Hyde Park. William Cubitt engineered the project, and Fox, Henderson and Co were the ironwork contractor. Construction took thirty-nine weeks. It was built of cast iron and plate glass.
The article gives the length as 1,851 feet (564 m) in one place and 1,848 feet (563 m) in another. The width was 456 feet (139 m) and the final height 135 feet (41 m). It used 900,000 square feet (84,000 m²) of glass in 293,000 panes.
Reconstruction began in 1852 on Sydenham Hill, and Queen Victoria opened the rebuilt palace on June 10, 1854. A fire destroyed it on November 30, 1936, and the north tower was demolished with explosives in 1941. The base of the south tower received historic status in 2020.
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