A Chinese property development company hopes to rebuild the iconic Victorian building that housed the Great Exhibition. It has been confirmed that ZhongRong Holdings has opened talks with Bromley Council and the Mayor of London about a project which could include creating a replica of the Crystal Palace which was destroyed by fire in 1936.
The Evening Standard reports that the Shanghai based company has already appointed design and engineering consultants Arup to develop plans for the regeneration of Crystal Palace Park.
While the details of the scheme are unclear it is believed that the owner, Ni Zhaoxing, is interested in building a copy of the 900,000 sq ft building. What it might be used for has not been revealed, but a mixture of retail and leisure is the most likely scenario.
The Crystal Palace astonished Victorians who flocked to Hyde Park to see the Great Exhibition in 1851. The cast iron and plate glass structure was designed by Joseph Paxton and represented the height of modernity. It contained the largest amount of glass that had ever been used in a building and was ventilated by an effective early air-conditioning system which, again, was devised by Paxton.
He was able to achieve these feats thanks to advances in materials and his experience as head gardener at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. There, he had experimented with glasshouse construction, enabling him to produce a design that flooded the huge exhibition space with natural light.
Following the closure of the exhibition, which showcased the best (and the worst) of international manufacturing, the building was dismantled and rebuilt at Sydenham Hill where it stood until it was consumed by flames on November 30th 1936. The event prompted Sir Winston Churchill to lament that the destruction of the Crystal Palace marked “the end of an age.”
The talks between the developers, the council and the Mayor are at a feasibility stage but a spokesman confirmed they were taking place.
“The Mayor is committed to finding a long-term sustainable future for Crystal Palace Park.
“The Mayor and the London Borough of Bromley have been approached by a potential developer who is keen to redevelop a large section of the north-side of the park.
“Any fully formed proposal would, of course, be presented to the public for comment in order to build a consensus on the way forward,” he said.
A planning application could be submitted later this year, but whether it includes a replica of the Crystal Palace remains to be seen. There have been previous proposals to raise the building from the ashes that have come to nothing and it has to be questioned whether a pastiche of Paxton’s remarkable structure would be either welcome or commercially viable.
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