Concertzaal in Crystal Palace met orkest en publiek c. 1860 - 1880

Curator: Wow, that’s a lot of people. Makes you wonder what the acoustics were like. Editor: Indeed. We’re looking at an anonymous photograph, believed to be from sometime between 1860 and 1880, showing the concert hall in Crystal Palace with both an orchestra and its audience. The overall structure, based on its sheer scale, commands respect, but also appears to be an act of structural hubris. Curator: Hubris? Tell me more! It just feels wonderfully celebratory to me – like a visual echo of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” a swelling and overflowing expression of joy. I love how the massive domed roof looms, almost echoing the shape of sound as it rises from the orchestra below. Editor: The architect, presumably in concert with structural engineers, had the temerity to span that dome and accommodate a mass like this with relatively little consideration, relying entirely on the compressive forces that make it work, forces that appear indifferent. In terms of visual language, note how the geometric order of the architectural design stands in contrast to the undifferentiated crowd of individuals – a dichotomy that could be interpreted through sociological lenses, as representing the collective versus the individual within burgeoning urban society. Curator: I see your point, but I can’t help but feel a kind of human triumph in this space. A shared experience multiplied a thousandfold. There's something hopeful in the act of coming together like that, something about culture bridging gaps. This piece shows how that culture is made material through an image, how it is caught and memorialized in the glass. It's all about creating memory together in public, an act that still resonates today when people take pictures at concerts with their smartphones. Editor: An excellent point, speaking to this image's cultural significance, or maybe the prefigurement of our impulse toward spectacular aggregation, in and out of virtual space. Curator: Absolutely. I also keep returning to how the orchestra are really dwarfed in size and, nevertheless, able to move these seated crowds. I guess that even an imperfect experience could hold power for each of those folks gathered at this specific time. Editor: Agreed, perhaps the true subject lies in the social geometry enacted, made permanent by photography.