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Megaproject idea, the incredible progression of Simon Whistler's beard

We also had a Crystal Palace in Portugal, built around the same time, by a Brit upon commission. But ours didn't burned down. It was demolished by the government in 1951 a movement so unpopular that to this day, almost 70 years after the fact, the gardens and the area in which the building was is still refered to as Crystal Palace. Including by people too young to have even seen it in their lifetimes.

"It's boring." -- I knew it, Simon is an American at heart.

During my fire service training we were told that the time taken between the fire being discovered and the first call to the Fire Brigade was 36 minutes. The streets were full of people who were wondering why the Fire Brigade had not arrived, and they all thought that someone else must have phoned up as it was such a big fire. I feel that this point was sufficiently interesting to have been included, as a quick phone call could have saved the building.

My grandmother told me that the fire was so huge you could see a glow in the sky that night from the other side of the city. She was just a kid when it happened but could recall it quite clearly.

Out of interest my father saw the Crystal Palace burn down with his own eyes. He turns 90 on Tuesday...

This is my local park. While there's no major structures left aside from the terraces you can see lots of little remnants and the dinosaurs are grossly understated in this. They're protected, being restored to their Victorian glory and wonderful! It's a pretty lovely park. Oh and there's a small museum next to what's left of one of the water towers. Worthy of a day out when in London (just check opening times, it's entirely volunteer run so is only open one day a week I think).

When I first learnt English in school there was a story about the crystal palace and the great exhibition in our textbook. It was written like a short historical fiction of a kid (I think a little girl) going to see the exhibition with their family. It had a drawing of the building next to it and I vividly remember wanting to see this in person. When the teacher later told us that the building doesn't exist anymore I was very very disappointed. Now more than a decade later this video reminds me how badly I wanted to see this building. Maybe I should finally get around to write a time travel story where the protagonist gets to visit it.

Insurance Assessor: So, your leaky building made entirely of steel and glass caught fire?.....

Never realized it was quite so big; always imagined it as just a big greenhouse. Thanks; great video.

This building is considered an one of the first examples of “Modern Architecture” with its extensive use of glass and steel. It’s an incredible project; thanks for do an awesome video on it‼️‼️

Your video took me back to my work place that was simply called....Crystal Palace. And the site of the 700 ft BBC television tower where I spent 21 fascinating years from 1976 helping to transmit and broadcast 405 line and 625 line television pictures to over 10m viewers in London. Each time I walked over the 'top site' as we called it, I usually found remnants of broken and melted glass from that famous fire reminding me of my own father who recounted how he saw the building burn down in 1936 from his adjacent home town of Beckenham when he was just 15. It is said a river of molten glass poured down Sydenham hill worryingly in his direction!

9:47, "Project began in 1950"?? Don't you mean 1850?

Despite so stubbornly refusing to simply watch a couple of Star Wars movies, Simon really nails some strong Palpatine vibes every time he says EMPIIIIIRE lol.

To quote a professor of mine, “the reason the sun never set on the British Empire was because even god didn’t trust those bastards in the dark”

My mum was 11 and living in London at the time. She remembered the fire as it lit up the sky over the whole of the city.

Megaprojects idea: The construction of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Simon: "I don't follow football. It's boring." *Proceeds to give it's size in football pitches too* Yes, it really does appear to be a unit of measurement, much like any amount of water is given in number of Olympic swimming pools. (Neither helps me). Nice work as always on the video Simon.

It’s refreshing to hear someone describe their nation accurately and brutally honest. I live in the southern United States, and I love my country…. But hate all the suffering it’s brought to the world.

One of the most impressive things about the Crystal Palace/the Great Exhibition is that people of all classes mingled as they walked through it. Previously rich people wouldn't regularly see the working class during their social hours/shopping etc, and vice versa.

Commenting until Simon makes that video about cargo ships he said he would do

“The building began in 1950.” I think that was a mistake. Was it 1850?

Having lived in CP, visited the museum and knowing a bit of trivia about it, this video was particularly interesting. Thanks Simon. Now I can continue to rant to my coworkers about Crystal Palace unapologetically :p

I love Simon! He makes it so much fun to learn. As I was watching this, I remembered seeing a strangely similar-looking building in Dallas, Texas. It’s called Infomart and it was, in fact, designed to resemble The Crystal Palace. There’s a Wikipedia article on it that says it was originally a sort-of permanent trade-show space, but later was converted to a “technology office and data center.”

I wish the Crystal Palace did still exist

My great-great-great grandfather had a huge Victorian greenhouse in this style. I don’t think many remain, though they’re so striking. They also had a courtyard where they played human chess, so it’s all a bygone world I guess.

Simon, your videos are brilliant. This one in particular was extra emotional. I love the history of the Crystal Palace. Keep up the amazing brilliant work. Seriously, you are one of the best channels on KZfaq at the moment. Thanks for all the great content!

Y'all should do a video on Chicago's World Fair, Like how the city rebuilt itself and expanded itself in record time to get the worlds fair.

15:37 A small fire? They did insurance scams back then too.

Simon’s beard is THE mega project and I love it!

"GAELIC" COUSINS!?!??? (the French) I think you mean "Gallic"!!

1:30 - Chapter 1 - Crystal Palaced 2:40 - Chapter 2 - Pax Britannica 4:00 - Chapter 3 - The great exhibition 5:10 - Chapter 4 - Design competition 7:50 - Chapter 5 - The largest glass house 9:40 - Chapter 6 - Construction 12:05 - Chapter 7 - The grand opening 14:00 - Chapter 8 - After the greatest show on earth 15:35 - Chapter 9 - The great fire

Did you know that Back in 1985, a developer built an office building that was modeled after the The Crystal Palace in Dallas, TX? Its called the Infomart building and its the closest the world has to The Crystal Palace. Ive never been inside myself, but it’s right off the highway and very distinctive looking. You cant miss it. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infomart

4:31 "...outdo their Gaelic cousins..." - that should be Gallic cousins, right?

I knew about this from a TV show in the 80's. I had forgotten about this. Thanks for the history. I downloaded Ground News.

I've often thought that if you were a person with a curious mind, the decades from the 1850s to 1920s would have been an incredible time to be alive.

Megaproject suggestion: ancient buildings with domes, especially double-skinned ones (like medieval cathedrals) where the inside is quite different to the outside. Love the range of this channel!

4:30 - Ahh, hold on there; you've called the French 'Gaelic', which is in fact the language spoken in Ireland & Scotland. You mean 'Gallic'; as in 'Gaul'.

Another blindingly good video of interest Simon & production team 👌🙏thank you

Great video. I always wondered about the history of the structure. Thanks.

You’d need an army of ETAs to heat a building like that. Generalissimo ETA will begin the conquering soon.....

I would love to see a video on this channel about the tower London were going to build to rival Paris’ Eiffel Tower and become the tallest building in the world, it was going to be built in Wembley and began construction, but then stopped.

Great video as always thanks! I especially enjoyed Simon's pronounciation of 'Empahr'!

Fantastic story and very well presented. Thank you for this excellent video.

I like how Ground News uses the electronics circuit symbol for electrical ground!! Makes an old techy happy...

Would love to learn more about that Great Stove. Interesting to see how greenhouse technology has come along since the 1800s.

My school used the sports complex at Crystal Palace. I can remember trying to take a shortcut to the bus stop up the old stone stairs. I think we were thwarted by a missing piece of staircase. Still had a magic atmosphere. Great episode. Thank you.

It’s amazing how many images and videos we have of things of the past

Megaprojects idea: The Amber Room.

The Blaze cannot be contained! 🤣

Motorcycle & car racing was held on the roads of the park. A racing-based episode of either the Avengers or The Saint was filmed there.

Thanks, I really found this fascinating.

"Derbyshire in the North Of England", someones from the South.

Would love to see the Chicago worlds fair grounds as well!

Simon is brilliant and always fun to watch. Hadn't heard of the Crystal Palace before, so when the year came up, it reminded me of a very different story that started in England. In December 1850, a woman named Anne Berry boarded the Roscius with her family, in Liverpool. They'd traveled there from Roscommon in flight from the famine. One of her sons went on to fight and die in the American Civil War, but Anne never made it to New York. The Roscius made port in the winter of 1851, but Anne died on the voyage. No, not directly related to the Palace, but the one story about that year, evoked the other.

Thank you your videos are fab! Best Wishes x

They looked for Prince Albert while building it, but couldn't find him. It was later revealed that he had been in the can.

I'm having beard envy. I think Simon's beard needs its own video.

I had never heard of this one and I studied quite a bit of history. Good closing line very epic in the presentation. Like you felt the loss your self.

Great work Simon !

The glass house in lalbagh botanical garden in bangalore was inspired from this, built by British. Its not as massive as this is

Holy sh*t Simon, that’s a helluva beard you’re rockin’ there. Great video guys, thank you!

As a small note… my little home town, of Great Western, in between the Grampians - the Pyrenees- and on the fringe of the Wimmera region of Victoria, (population 150 when I was a kid) had little in the way of streets. But those few streets were proudly named, Stevenson st, Brunel st, Paxton st in the early 1853,just 18 months after the opening of the great exhibition. My address was the corner of Paxton and Brunel Streets,Great Western, Victoria. My interest in engineering comes directly from the names from my home town.

Not sure if it would be best for Megaprojects or maybe Geographics or even TIFO, but I would love to see you do a video on the Love Canal disaster, as I grew up essentially down the road from it.

Whenever I tell anybody in the world I'm from Manchester the first thing 90% of them ask is "City or United" and my answer is "neither, I don't care for football". So I totally get your struggle there haha.

Imagine talking to that glass dealer. “How large of glass panes can you make?” “49x10” “We’ll take 200,000”

I had heard of this building but knew little about it; thank you for expanding my education.

I'm with you about football Simon! I live near the Crystal Palace. It's an incredible place. Most of the images shows early on are from when it was enlarged and taken to Penge Common in South East London. Most of the images were later as photography was in its infancy. There was a fire int eh east wing where Queen Victoria had apartments. If you visit it today you can see where the palace was. It was moved from Hyde Park to Penge (on Sydenham Hill) by Pickfords removal men. Many people died in the construction. The water towers were designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as the original ones weren't strong enough. They survived the fire, but were knocked down before WW2 so they didn't become landmarks for the German bombers. The bases are still visible. There were actually two fires. The first one destroyed one wing where the Queens apartments were. This then became a aquarium (you can see the ruins of it today. THe major one was in 1936. A large part of it survived that that led down to the lower station. This survived until about 1956 but that too burnt down. After it burnt down, the site ended up being filled with rubble from the Blitz. You can see bits of bricks sticking out from the ground. If you look closely you can see many of the original posts which they simply cut off at ground level. Some people say that glass flowed like water down the hill. This is fake news and never happened. Some glass did melt, but not enough to flow like water and it was simply too far from the road. It was the first pre-fabricated building in the world, the largest glass building in the world for many years to come and a huge landmark that gave the area its name. The park had huge fountains, some of which you can still see in some overgrown parts of the park. It's the place where the FA cup used to be held. Jim Clark races Lotus Cortinas as the park was used as a race track (one of the worlds first) there and it had a dry ski slope, the dinosaurs (which are still there). The scene in the Italian Job where they test the minis and they 'blow the bloody doors off' were all filmed in the park too. You could do hours on the CP.

Episode suggestion: "Rondon Commission" - the project to set up telegraph lines into the amazon. Cândido Rondon is a very interesting figure I'd like to learn more about.

I love how you say "Empiaah". And, BTW, all empires were built on brutal suppression. People really don't want to be subjugated. BTW, I wish you'd clarified one thing. If the building was famously built of glass and iron, what, exactly, was burning?

i could watch Simon talk about the construction of the Big Mac and be captivated. great work, my british friend.

Great video as always Simon. Love to see you cover the building of the cntower in Canada.

Simon you should do some research on ancient Indian temples you will be amazed by their structures

A suggestion, Chicago 1893 World’s Fair.

Oh hey wow, I did my senior thesis on the US Botanic Garden. The Botanic Garden was based on the Crystal Palace. There is an episode worth doing here. Also I can email a whole ton of research. Could also do Kew Garden as well.

My Mum grew up in Earlesfield South London and remembered the night Crystal Palace burnt down. She talked about the amazing glow in the sky. I went to the park in the 1960s. The local railway station is magnificent.

MegaProject Idea: The Internet.

How about the Sagrada Familia? The cathedral more than 100 years in the making.

The stories I find here have a little bit of everything.... that's an awesome thing.

One of your best videos (among soo many good ones!). The Crystal Palace was an amazing project, especiallyfor its time

When you see these numbers for attendance, and theyre "big" numbers.... it kinda puts into perspective gamers who stream to 100k people at the same time. Give you an idea of how huge they are.

Also, highly recommend the tv show Victoria (the latest season as of this video) as one of the last few episodes of the season shows the planning and building of the Crystal Palace by Prince Albert

One can look back at the horrors of empire but did the UK at the time ever have engineers.Stephenson and Brunel were both extremely brilliant men, developing ways to put canals, and later railways are grade in any landscape, and then go out and build it. Brunel went on to build the largest ship in history and used it to lay the first transatlantic cable. We cannot forget Joseph Bazallgette, who was a master of huge projects like the London sewer system. In any of these massive projects, the project management was the most difficult part but these great men did it. Go to the UK, which is a living museum in many ways and one will see the work of these great engineers all over the country.

The little maze is amusing, & once in a while road racing is brilliant

That beard seems to be growing extremely fast...

Brunel ~ greatest engineer in history > tunnels, railway stations, bridges, tunnels, locomotives, and in his spare time, steamships

I live 5 minutes from the site of the site, its mental watching a video you made on something round the corner from my house

great ep!! keep it ip

All I can think about Crystal Palace is a mediocre premier league team

Wouldn’t it be crazy if the news reported the facts and let people think for themselves?

Living 10 mins walk away from Crystal Palace Park it's always weird walking around the grounds of the Palace. It's the closest thing we have to Roman ruins in South London lol. I do wish they spent some money on the grounds and made it much nicer. You can also walk along the old railway line through Sydenham Woods that closed as a result of the Palace burning down.

Awesome concept of ground news...

the site of the crystal palace also saw some racing events back in the 50's and 60's

Cast and wrought iron with glass whats to burn, they must have stuffed that place with combustible materials before they set on fire.

That was good. Thanks

Great video.

Beard goals right there 😍🔥

The British Empire, a tale we tell children 😂

The 1876 Philadelphia Exhibit was purchased by the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC. The entire exhibition was packed and moved to DC where it formed a major portion of then early museum. It had it's own custom built building, Arts & Industry, which still stands. From 1976 to 1996, the Smithsonian unpacked and re-displayed the exhibition.