A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton

By Kate Colquhoun
Fourth Estate. London 2003. £18.99

Reviewed by Dennis Dollens
Department of Genetic Architecture
Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona

exodesic@mac.com

When he is remembered, Joseph Paxton is known for his design and supervision of the Crystal Palace—the 1851 cast-iron and glass structure that transcended its garden heritage (evolving from greenhouses) to become the world’s most advanced, technological structure. Enclosing 21 acres and erected in a few months, the Crystal Palace housed England’s first blockbuster international exhibition. Media and promotional support was so great during its development that the building became the exhibition’s main attraction. Its physical structure came to embody early Victorian ideals of work and industry as its image seeded future visions affecting urban building typologies such as glass atria, shopping arcades, and railroad stations. Interestingly, the Crystal Palace’s appeal and vision crossed social boundaries, receiving the early support of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria then subsequently garnering working class support in the form of massive attendances (it was one of Cook’s Tours first destinations and workers could pay travel expenses through advanced weekly subscription). Such a building would be the life’s triumph of a great engineer or architect, but a gardener built the Crystal Palace. And, it was only one of Joseph Paxton’s many triumphs.

So, while Kate Colquhoun’s chapters describing the Crystal Palace are full of revelations, those surrounding them, tell a fairytale-like story of a developing genius. They reveal Paxton’s autodidactic path and his ongoing and deep relationship with his patron and later friend and colleague, the 6^th Duke of Devonshire. Paxton’s training ground was the Duke’s Chatsworth estate, where, over his lifetime, he transformed landscape, garden, waterworks, and eventually architectural history, concurrently transforming himself into a Victorian icon of work and intelligence. His collaboration with the Duke resulted in botanic expeditions adding new and formerly unknown trees, plants, and orchids to England’s botanic patrimony and together the Duke and Paxton made Chatsworth the botanic showplace of Europe. Through channels independent of the Duke, Paxton wrote and edited garden magazines and later founded a general London newspaper; hiring Charles Dickens as editor. Even as writing supplemented his healthy Chatsworth income he also took on independent design work (notably designing Baron Mayer de Rothschild’s 1855 estate) as well as serving as a board member and consultant for various railways.

If one 19^th-century structure could represent the seed of a new architecture—and like botanic seeds there are an abundance of architectural seeds—Paxton’s 1835-38 Great Stove (as his greenhouse masterpiece was known) would be my foremost candidate. Looking at pictures of it (it was demolished in 1920) one could be looking at a prismatic or origami-like structure from today’s avant-garde. As a piece of pre-Victorian design it is dazzling, anticipating Bruno Taut’s crystal architecture by almost eighty years. The Great Stove is a set of continuous folding facets or as Colquhoun tells us "furrow and ridges," arched and curved to cover and enormous 30,000 square feet. Primarily a wood framed building, the stove’s elements were steam-milled on site. Its glass scales were the largest panes available (48 x 6 inches) and when inserted into the skeletal-like frame created a lightweight, undulating skin supported by 36 interior, cast-iron columns. A material hybrid not possible before the industrial revolution, this building’s morphological shape also owed nothing to architectural history. Yet, effectively it was Paxton’s testing-ground for prefabrication and a model for techniques he later refined for the Crystal Palace. Therefore, if the Crystal Palace is considered the beginning of enormous-scale prefabrication projects, eventually leading to Modernism, the Great Stove and other works at Chatsworth, especially the glasshouse sheltering the gigantic Amazonian water lily, Victoria regia, were its germinating bed. Colquhoun’s book rights this neglected parentage.

A Thing in Disguise charts Paxton’s development as gardener, landscape designer, writer, architect, politician, family man, and friend; all part of his historic role in 19^th century England. Paxton was a determined, hard worker who became a national figure—the common man who worked his way to the top—he was elected to Parliament and knighted by Queen Victoria. This is a benchmark biography and deserves an honored place on every library shelf serving architects, engineers, gardeners and those interested in Victorian technology and culture.