Owen Jones (architect) - The Crystal Palace at Sydenham

The Crystal Palace At Sydenham

After the Great Exhibition closed, the "Crystal Palace" was re-erected in Sydenham. Jones was given joint responsibility, with Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820–1877), for the decoration and layout for this new incarnation which opened in 1854 as a permanent venue for education and entertainment. Jones and Digby Wyatt envisaged a series of ‘Fine Arts Courts’ which would take the visitor through a grand narrative of the history of design and ornament. Jones had the opportunity to re-visit his work at the Alhambra by building a luxurious re-creation of the famed palace in the ‘Alhambra Court’. He also designed the Egyptian, Greek and Roman courts. For its first thirty years, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham welcomed approximately 2 million visitors a year, which is roughly equal to the number of visitors the V&A receives annually at South Kensington today. The Crystal Palace was destroyed by a fire in 1936, and was never rebuilt.