September 19th 2023
In 1851, the south side of Hyde Park was host to the 'Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations'.
The event (organised by Prince Albert), only lasted five and a half months and was hosted within a gigantic glass and cast-iron structure. After its subsequent rebuilding in South London at Penge Place (today known as Crystal Palace), the second iteration was destroyed by fire in 1936.
However, today visitors can once again see the 'Crystal Palace', albeit in digital form. This new experience uses 'augmented reality' – quite simply it uses an app on your smartphone to overlay a 3D representation of 'Crystal Palace' at its true scale using your smartphone's camera to overlay the image in real-time.
Visitors should visit the south side of Hyde Park (the original site of the Great Exhibition) having installed the free app on their smartphone.
Full information here:
However, if access to the site (or a smartphone) is not available, then the already existing 'virtual reality' version can be viewed from your web browser, for free here:
https://www.seymourlerhn.com/royalparks/greatexhibition/