The Palais de l'Industrie (Palace of Industry) was an exhibition hall located in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

between the

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and the

Champs-Élysées The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...

, which was erected for the Paris World Fair in 1855. This was the last of several buildings with the same name erected on the same site. The first ''Palais de l'Industrie'' was built in 1839 and was replaced for subsequent exhibitions in 1844 and 1849. The 1855 building was mainly designed by the architect Jean-Marie-Victor Viel and the engineer Alexis Barrault. It was demolished in 1897 to make way for the Grand Palais of the

World Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

in 1900. Emperor

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

wished the

World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

of 1855, which followed

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

's Great Exhibition by four years, to prove the superiority of the French by surpassing the British fair in every way. In particular, he desired a spectacular exhibition hall to rival

The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around th ...

. A competition held in 1852 was won by a plan by

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Jean-Marie-Victor Viel and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

Desjardin, which combined the traditional use of masonry with that of cast iron. Due to cost constraints, however, the plans had to be reworked, for which the engineer Alexis Barrault is credited. In the final design, masonry was used only for the exterior walls, which were to be one metre thick and eighteen metres high. However, these massive walls were barely able to support the weight of the projecting cornice, and had to be reinforced with

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...

columns and beams. The Palace of Industry was 260 metres (850 ft) long and 105 metres (350 ft) wide. Its principal

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

was 190 metres (630 ft) long, and 48 metres (158 ft) wide. It was surrounded on four sides by aisles two stories high, and 30 metres (98 ft) wide. Its semi-circular

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...

es bridged a 24-metre (80 ft) span to create an enormous exhibition room. Despite its immense size, the palace was not large enough to house all of the expected exhibitors, so that two temporary buildings were constructed to house the remaining displays. The main failure of the building, which was not completed by the day the World Fair opened, was its poor ventilation. Although this made the building extremely hot during the day, it served as a hall for numerous exhibits and social events until its demolition in 1897.

Octave Mirbeau Octave Mirbeau (16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917) was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the ...

,Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) commenting on the ''Palais de l'Industrie'' as a focal point of the Champs Elysées, compared the building to "an ox trampling through a rose garden." Although critics nearly universally condemned the Gothic "heaviness" of the building, the sheathing of an iron and glass structure with a stone casing was imitated in the London Exposition of 1862 and the

World Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and even in the buildings that were to replace it: the Grand Palais and

Petit Palais The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...

built for the 1900 World Fair. The entrance of the Palais de l'Industrie was crowned by

Élias Robert There are two Louis-Valentin Robert : 1) Louis Valentin Robert born 15 September 1819 (Étampes) died 2 October 1819 (Étampes) His younger brother with the same name : 2) Louis Valentin Robert called Élias Robert born 6 June 1821 (Étampes ...

's sculpture group France crowning Art and Industry.

References

{{Coord, 48.8669, N, 2.3142, E, source:wikidata, display=title Former buildings and structures in Paris Buildings and structures completed in 1855 Convention centers in France World's fair architecture in Paris 1855 establishments in France Buildings and structures demolished in 1897 Demolished buildings and structures in Paris