Crystalized Palaces
nationalgeographic.com /Artwork: designslinger]
When I saw the title, "Crystal Palace" in the November issue of National Geographic
Magazine, I didn't expect to see a literal castle of crystals. The geo-formations in Cueva de los Cristales are so enormous that the entire cave looks like a set from the Superman movie franchise. The cave was discovered in 2000 by two brothers working in the Naica mine near Chihuahua, Mexico. They were digging a communication tunnel and stumbled upon the cave accidentally while drilling their way through the rock walls. Water was pumped out of the cavern to reveal gypsum crystals up to 35 feet in length, some so transparent and glistening they look like the polished glass sparklers that dangle from expensive chandeliers.
Queen Victoria, wikipedia.org /Artwork: designslinger]
The combination of the words "Crystal" and "Palace" reminded me of one of the great
buildings of the early Industrial Age, an exhibition building constructed in London in 1851. Britain was on it's way to becoming the world's dominant industrial empire, and Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert was a big fan of the emerging modern technology associated with the era. He decided it would be good for the country to show off their new-found power and prestige by putting on an huge scientific and industrial exhibition. The problem was that there was nowhere to house the exhibit which had grown into an international industrial machinery showcase. A design competition was held, and the winner Joseph Paxton drew up his plan on blotting paper that took him all of 9 days to complete. The building certainly measured up to the cutting edge technology of the exhibition itself. It was built in just 6 months and dubbed the Crystal Palace, because it's light steel frame held 293,655 panes of crystal clear glass. No one had ever seen anything like it and the building became as famous as the exhibits themselves. One of the most popular new fangled items presented was the flush toilet. For a penny, the public was invited to entered an enclosed booth, look into a porcelain bowl, pull a chain - and flush. The cubicles were a sensation.
The movers and shakers in the city of New York were so impressed with the London
experience that they decided it would play well with a U.S. audience. Not to be outdone by the Brits, they formed a committee in 1853, that would sponsor the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. They made no bones about copying the London presentation; right down to building their own Crystal Palace. The major feature of the New York structure was a huge central dome 100 feet in diameter. The exhibition didn't have flush toilets to demonstrate, but it did have something just as ground-breaking to show off. North of the Crystal Palace site (which is today's Bryant Park by the way) stood the 350 foot high Latting Observatory. This is where Elisha Otis demonstrated his steam powered elevator, but more importantly, his elevator braking system. The public was fearful of using this new technology as an alternative to climbing stairs, because in their mind the cable carrying the weight of the elevator cab was likely to break, and result in one plunging to one's death. Otis devised an elevator system in which the passenger cab was equipped with teeth that would lock it in place and prevent a fall. He demonstrated his invention to the public by standing on a platform that simulated the floor of an elevator cab which was rigged to a mechanism attached to the Observatory. As he rose into the air, the hoisting cable was cut, and as the onlookers gasped, the teeth grabbed the rig - stopping Otis from plummeting to the ground. It was a great crowd pleaser.
London's Crystal Palace was moved from it's original Hyde Park location and stood in the
Syndenham Hill neighborhood until it burned to the ground in 1936. New York's facsimile Palace met with the same fate, only much sooner in it's history, burning into a heap in 1858. The Crystal Caves in Mexico will probably never be destroyed by fire. They could however be destroyed by their other-worldly attractiveness. The water drained from the cave has caused the moisture levels to change, and along with the number of tourists clamoring for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, there have been noticeable changes in the eco-system. Scientists and geologists are studying the effects of these changes and are monitoring the situation. Hopefully, we won't see giant crystals come crashing down any time soon.
Finally, this is a big day for us - our 100th post on design slinger. Granted, in the world
of daily blogging 100 is small potatoes, but we've hit our own little milestone. Now, how long before we post number 1,000? Well, let's see: if we post each weekday of every month, that will give us a minimum of 20 posts per month, times ......
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