Chinese company to restore London's Crystal Palace

A Chinese real estate giant will spend 500 million pounds to restore Britain's famous Crystal Palace Park, once the largest glass structure in the world that was destroyed in a 1936 fire.
The new building will be the same size and scale as its gigantic Victorian predecessor originally designed by Sir Joseph Paxton for the 1851 Great Exhibition, the Evening Standard reported.
The project, announced by Shanghai-based Zhongrong Group here yesterday, will restore the 900,000 square foot glass halls of the palace as well as the 180-acre Crystal Palace Park by investing 500 million pounds.
The new Crystal Palace will be used for cultural events - concerts, exhibitions and screenings - as well as for conferences and conventions.

"We want to restore Crystal Palace to its former glory, and we also want to provide a venue for art collectors from all over the world to showcase and trade their collections," Zhongrong chairman Ni Zhaoxing said.
Zhongrong has hired a British engineering consultancy to draft the regeneration plans and if the plan is approved, construction would begin in the winter of 2015, it said.

The restoration project has received strong support from both London Mayor Boris Johnson and Stephen Carr, leader of the local council of Bromley, which looks after Crystal Palace Park.
"It's incredibly exciting that Mr Ni has come forward with a brilliant, original, and simple vision, to recreate that palace in a 21st century version," Johnson said.

Although details are still to be announced, the project is expected to create more than 2,000 permanent and temporary jobs in addition to attracting wider local investment.
The Palace was first erected in central London's Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition and relocated to southeast London afterwards.