What was the name of the glass and iron building that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851?

The glass and iron building that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851 was the Crystal Palace. Designed principally by gardener and inventor Joseph Paxton, it used a modular framework of cast iron, prefabricated parts and thousands of identical glass panes. Its transparent walls and roof made it look radically different from conventional masonry buildings of the period.

The exhibition opened in Hyde Park, London, on 1 May 1851, and displayed industrial products, machinery, raw materials and works of art from Britain and around the world. The building was about 1,848 feet long and contained roughly 293,000 panes of glass. Its construction demonstrated the same industrial innovation that the exhibition was intended to celebrate.

The original structure was temporary. After the exhibition closed on 15 October 1851, it was dismantled and rebuilt at Sydenham in south London, where it became a permanent landmark and gave its name to the surrounding district. The rebuilt palace was destroyed by a major fire in 1936. The Crystal Palace is sometimes confused with the Great Exhibition itself, but the former was the building and the latter was the event.