- Garden Palace
The Garden Palace was a large purpose-built exhibition building constructed to house the Sydney International Exhibition (1879). It was designed by
James Barnet and was constructed at a cost of 191,800 Pounds in only eight months - largely due to the special importation from England of electric lighting which enabled work to be carried out around-the-clock.A reworking of London's Crystal Palace, it is visually similar in many respects to the later
Royal Exhibition Building inMelbourne ; theSydney building consisted of three turreted wings meeting beneath a central dome. Sydney's first hydraulic lift was contained in the north tower. The building was sited at what is today the southwestern end of the Royal Botanic Gardens (although at the time it was built it occupied land that was outside the Gardens). It was constructed primarily fromtimber , which was to assure its complete destruction when engulfed byfire in the early morning ofSeptember 22 1882 .The only extant remains of the Garden Palace are its carved
sandstone gateposts andwrought iron gates, located on the Macquarie Street entrance to the Royal Botanical Gardens. [Macey, R. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-palace-that-became-a-bonfire/2007/09/14/1189276983728.html "The palace that became a bonfire."]Sydney Morning Herald , 15 September 2007.] A1940 s-era sunken garden and fountain featuring a statue ofCupid marks the former location of the Palace's dome. The only artifact from the International Exhibition to survive the fire - a carvedgraphite statue of anelephant , fromCeylon - is on exhibit at thePowerhouse Museum .ee also
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Royal Exhibition Building - Melbourne's exhibition building.References
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