Interieur van het Crystal Palace te Londen before 1869

This print captures the interior of London’s Crystal Palace, a testament to industrial ingenuity. The soaring glass and iron structure, filled with manufactured goods, embodies the spirit of progress that defined its age. Look at how the architecture frames the objects on display, mirroring the way religious icons were once enshrined in cathedrals. Notice the echoes of classical columns, abstracted and reformed in cast iron. These are not merely aesthetic choices; they reflect a desire to legitimize the new industrial order by linking it to the grandeur of the past. The Crystal Palace, in its short life, became an icon. After being moved from Hyde Park, it was destroyed by fire in 1936. Yet it lives on through these images, a potent reminder of cultural ambition and the cyclical nature of progress.