(March 25-April 29, 2005) Curated by Jesse Aaron Cohen

London. Conceived to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, the original Crystal Palace was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton in just 10 days. The massive iron structure built in London's Hyde park contained over 1,000,000 feet of glass. Inside, the Palace featured over 13,000 exhibits designed to showcase Great Britain's industrial and cultural might at the height of the Victorian era. The Palace was originally designed as a temporary structure, but due to its sensational popularity (over 6 million people visited), plans were drawn up to rebuild the palace in Sydenham, South London, in 1852. The new Crystal Palace, opened by Queen Victoria herself in 1854, was even more grandiose: over 1,800 feet long and featuring an array of attractions from natural history, arch itecture, and industrial exhibits to a circus, a roller coaster, and the world's largest organ. 12 workers were killed during the construction of the Sydenham palace when a scaffolding collapsed. In 1866, a fire broke out, destroying the palace's north end and many natural history exhibits. In 1892, a hot air balloon accident killed one person, and in 1900 another was killed by an escaped elephant. On the evening of November 30th, 1936, Crystal Palace General Manager, Henry Buckland, and his daughter, Crystal Buckland, noticed a small fire at the palace. Spreading quickly, the fire frustrated the efforts of over 80 fire engines, reducing the palace to ashes and rubble by morning.

New York. Designed following the success of London's Industrial Exhibition of 1851, New York's Crystal Palace opened to the public in 1853 on the corner of 42nd st. and Sixth Avenues, the current site of Bryant Park. The centerpiece of the impressive iron and glass structure wa s a 100 foot diameter glass dome, the largest in the Western world at the time. The Palace featured over 5,000 exhibits from 23 countries including: painting and sculpture, minerals and jewelry, and a wealth of industrial products. A leaky roof destroyed several of the exhibitions. Financial disappointment led to the closing of the exhibition in 1854, and the building was then used sporadically for concerts and exhibitions over the next 4 years. On Tuesday October 5th, 1858, the New York Crystal Palace, which had been declared "fire-proof" at the time of it's opening, caught fire during the annual fair of the American Institute. The building burnt to the ground in just 30 minutes.

Dallas. Modeled after London's Crystal Palace, Infomart Dallas was constructed by the Trammell Crow Corporatio n in 1985. Boasting over 1.6 million square feet of office space and 3,247 parking spaces, Infomart offers an extensive array of amenities and services, including 24/7 security, a restaurant, newsstand, and shoeshine, as well as full-service catering facilities. It is home to over 50 bandwidth intensive companies requiring extraordinary infrastructure, network connectivity, and elegant, Class A office space. Offering amenities that transcend those of the traditional office building, Infomart is a complex communications ecosystem that is the world's first truly successful technology community.

"New" Crystal Palace - Sydenham, London - circa 1920's New York Crystal Palace, 1853 Infomart, Dallas, circa 1998

The morning after the fire, 1936..... The morning after the fire, New York, 1858

Supplementary Material