The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass structure erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000 square feet (92,000 m2) of exhibition space to display examples of the technology developed during the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m). The invention of the cast plate glass method in 1848 made possible the production of large sheets of cheap but strong glass, and its use in the Crystal Palace created a structure with the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building and astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights.
Its name Crystal Palace was result of a piece penned by the playwright Douglas Jerrold, who in July 1850 wrote in the satirical magazine Punch as 'Mrs Amelia Mouser' about the forthcoming Great Exhibition of 1851, referring to a palace of very crystal. The name was subsequently repeated even though the building had not been approved.
After the exhibition, the building was rebuilt in an enlarged form on Penge Common, at the top of Penge Peak next to Sydenham Hill, an affluent south London suburb full of large villas. It stood there from 1854 until its destruction by fire in 1936. A re-working of the building, known as The Garden Palace, had been constructed in Sydney in 1879, but this building too was destroyed by fire.
The name was later used to denote this area of south London and the park that surrounds the site, home of the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre as well as Crystal Palace F.C. who were founded at the Crystal Palace. In 2013 a proposal was made to re-build the Crystal Palace within the Crystal Palace Park, but the project was cancelled in 2015. The park still contains Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins's Crystal Palace Dinosaurs from 1854.