One thing worth noting is lack of fire safety. Not only did the crystal palace burn down but also most of the similar steel and glass exhibition centres built internationally (of which the crystal palace was the first very large one)
Not only that, but construction in general operated in a far different regulatory environment.
Imagine King Charles today proposing a 990 000 square foot structure in Hyde Park. Get Design. Build structure. How hard could it be?
Today there are more voices. Queen Victoria simply decreed, and it was done. Today building the structure would be fast. Getting permission to build it would take decades (even for the King) and cost a fortune.
Savehydepark.com would be a domain in seconds.
The mulberry harbours were built in a day with scant regard to the views of the locals.
Victoria didn't decree anything. There was a commission set up by the government a year or two before the Great Exhibition to oversee things and the purchasing of land and funding for construction was subject to parliamentary debate and approval.
Your comment about the Mulberry harbours is quite baffling. Are you seriously suggesting that a modern day military operation on the scale of Overlord would be subject to local consultations?
We retain the capacity in the UK to do just that.
Parliament sits above the courts as effectively the Supreme Court of the UK, where everybody's interests are notionally represented (the current mis-named 'supreme court' is really just the Court of the United Kingdom). The King, via the Ministers of the Crown, could propose a building as a Bill in Parliament. If Parliament then passes that as an Act, then it will happen and nothing can stop it from happening. Including using the Army to detain and remove protestors if necessary. All it needs is the relevant sections in the Act.
Recovering this power is why Brexit was so important. With it we can build the green infrastructure we need as we built the railways - via dictatorial Acts of Parliament that brook no opposition.
Now all we need are MPs prepared to use that power to save us from oblivion.
> Recovering this power is why Brexit was so important. With it we can build the green infrastructure we need as we built the railways - via dictatorial Acts of Parliament that brook no opposition.
Like, for example, the High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Act, which passed in 2017 and was pootling through parliament from 2013? i.e. almost entirely before even the Brexit referendum, and definitely before Brexit?
>Recovering this power is why Brexit was so important.
Yet public infrastructure in Britain still costs 2-3 times what it costs in continental Europe. It strikes me that blaming the EU was a very convenient excuse.
That power existed before the referendum too. The leave campaign was full of intentionally vague statements that were emotionally charged but lacked any factual substance.
Our “sovereignty” hasn’t changed. The NHS didn’t get any additional funding. Trade deals have gotten worse not better. The whole thing was just smoke and mirrors.
Literally the only thing the referendum was sincere about, was David Cameron’s desire to consolidate votes and reduce the number of his own MPs leaving for other right-wing parties.
He succeeded at that, but its cost the economy literally billions.
Are you unfamiliar with the process known as judicial review?
While the above poster is a little overenthusiastic, there is no judicial review of acts of Parliament. Judicial review seeks to challenge whether a public body reached a decision lawfully, and acts of Parliament are always lawful provided they are passed in the property manner
https://davidallengreen.com/2023/01/courts-and-politics-and-...
Odd. I wouldn't expect these buildings to be an above average fire risk ...
The underfloor heating was to blame: hot flue gases and an old and increasingly flammable timber floor... https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/9413492.exhibition-at-cry...
The contents were flammable and there were no firewalls.
British standard whitworth lives on as the thread which attaches cameras to tripods I think.
I once liberated some simmilar bolts from a broken out tunnel wall at Tottenham Court Road. We machined into tensile coupons and they just stretch out like pulling a toffee bar!
It's amusing these days to think of imperial measurements as a great standardising force in the world in light of our inability to go metric.
>It's amusing these days to think of imperial measurements as a great standardising force in the world in light of our inability to go metric.
As always it is not quite so simple. Another early standard thread was the British Association. Proposed 1884, and adopted 1903. It was the recommended thread for small diameters (even by the British Standard institute), and is still seen in electrical terminals, and some small instruments.
BA threads are metric!
I didnt know that. I kept all my BA eyelet crimp terminals as they were a pretty good fit for metric threads, I see this is not a coincidence now!
Hercules in India still sells roadster bikes with Withworth threads.
Is the a good source for the complete blueprints of the palace? Digital models? I've always enjoyed visiting glass houses but never thought much about how the framework is put together
There's a great story about this in Bill Brysons book "At Home". That's how I learned in 1851 the glass window TAX was repealed.