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Notes taken in the course Architecture Science and technology taught by Antoine Picon at Harvard University. These are notes and were taken quickly during class, beware of the writing style!
Peters T.-F., Building the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The M.I.T. Press, 1996, Chapter 6, Patterns of Technological Thought: Buildings from the Sayn Foundry to the Galerie des Machines pp. 205-279.
Like most other prefabricated systems, the Crystal Palace (British) designed by Paxton and Fox in 1851 and destroyed in 1936 was a composite of iron cast and wrought iron, wood, and glass. Its name was due to the fascination of the public for the glass and the light.
One most fascinating antecedent to the Crystal Palace was the Sayn Foundry created in 1830 by Althans made of Iron with neo gothic detailing.
Another iron structure (before the Crystal palace) that did not need masonry walls for stability (unsupported iron building): the Kew Palm House by Turner in 1846-1848…
