PLAN OF KROLL'S WINTERGARTEN, BERLIN.
| 1. Electric Telegraph. 2. Chemical Products. 3. Porcelain and Bronzes. 4. Machinery. 5. Hardware. 6. Zinc Works. 7· Plate and Jewellery. 8. Lithography. 9. Watches, &c. | 10. Cutlery. 11. Scientific Instruments. 12. Bookbinding. 13. Embroidery. 14. Ornamental Blinds. 15. Silks and Velvets. 16. Furs. 17. Pianofortes. 18. Carriages. | 19. Furniture. 20. Lamps, &c. 21. Turned Articles. 22. Woollen Fabrics. 23. Leather Articles. 24. Hats & Felt Articles. 25. Machinery. 26. Carriages. |
On a previous occasion a part of the Royal Arsenal building was appropriated, and the Exhibition embraced two storeys.
In our own country, exhibitions of manufactures have taken place in several of the most important towns, generally in spaces only temporarily adapted; but in 1849 the first building in this country intended solely for the purpose of an exhibition of manufactures was erected at Birmingham, on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association in that town.
VIEW OF THE BIRMINGHAM EXPOSITION BUILDING.
The building alluded to included a space extending to 10,000 square feet, and a corridor, giving additional accommodation of 800 square feet, connected the temporary exhibition-room with Bingley-house, within the grounds of which the building was erected; and including the rooms of the old mansion, the total area covered by the Exhibition was equal to 12,800 feet, or only about one-seventeenth of the area covered by the last building erected in the Champs Elysées. The cost of this building was about 1,300l. It was opened to the public on the 3rd of September, 1849.
In most of the buildings alluded to above, the principal defect seemed to be that a definite and fixed subdivision of space was made for a classification of objects which was necessarily uncertain. This appears to have determined the Committee in the arrangement of the plan which they presented in a general form to the Royal Commission at the same time with the Report already quoted; and although the design was slightly modified during the progress of the working-drawings subsequently made, this is, perhaps, the best place for introducing a description of it.
It has been already mentioned that at the time the Committee received the competition designs, they obtained the assistance of Mr. Digby Wyatt, the secretary to the Executive Committee, to aid them in the preparation of drawings, although Mr. Scott Russell officially filled the post of secretary to the Building Committee. At a somewhat later stage of the Committee's proceedings, when the general design for the proposed building had been approved by the Royal Commission, and it became necessary to prepare working drawings for the same with extraordinary despatch, Mr. Charles Heard Wild, as engineer, and Mr. Owen Jones, as architect, were appointed to co-operate with Mr. Wyatt in carrying out this object.