I think it is easy to settle for stereotypes, particularly about the distant past. Take Victorian England. For me – I admit I am not up on my history – what comes to mind is proper, class-oriented, risk-averse. Thank goodness for curious writers like Bill Bryson, who unveils the richer fabric behind the stereotype in At Home.
In 1850 Britain decided to construct the world’s largest building to house a World’s Fair-like exhibition. It would span nineteen acres and be spacious enough to contain four St. Paul’s cathedrals. Two major problems were that nothing so large had ever been built, and following several wasted months, there was less than a year to get it done. All initial designs had been rejected. The second committee came up with an unworkable design. Then they heard from Joseph Paxton, a gardener from a poor family. He had designed the world’s first municipal park, which Olmstead used as a model for New York’s Central Park.
Paxton came up with the idea while chairing a railroad committee meeting and finished the design in two weeks. The core materials were iron and glass, never before used for a large building. Also acres of wood flooring, against the rules for fire safety reasons. Despite all this, after just a couple of days of deliberation, the committee approved Paxton’s design. Then Paxton designed a mobile platform that allowed workers to install 18,000 panes of glass a week. And then another machine that a small team could use to attach 20 miles of guttering at a rate of 2,000 feet per day. All in 1850!
The building was finished in 35 weeks. 1,851 feet long, 408 feet wide, 110 feet high. The cost? 80,000 pounds. The exhibition was a success.
Paxton’s genius, while remarkable, is not why I write this. Nor is it about Henry Cole, who dreamed up the exhibition, nor Prince Albert, who sponsored it. Nor is my main point the committee, which had the courage and the open-mindedness to support a radical idea from an unconventional source and commission a gardener to design the largest building the world had ever seen. The true wonder is Victorian England and its support for extraordinary ideas, for innovation and for risk-taking. That is the kind of culture I want at Ipswitch.
Subscribe to this blog.