The Crystal Palace's exterior design was unquestionably avant-garde for its time, but unfortunately, it looked very much like the greenhouses of this era. Its designer, Joseph Paxton, had even drawn his inspiration from greenhouse gardens.
To ordinary people, the Crystal Palace was a stroke of divine genius, but to someone of royal birth like Olga, it was nothing out of the ordinary.
After all, greenhouse gardens were hardly remarkable among high society. Especially in the Austrian Empire—Schönbrunn Palace alone had more than one, and many Austrian nobles even had them in their own courtyards.
This was largely thanks to Franz bringing down the price of glass. Historically, the Crystal Palace had likewise owed its existence to Britain becoming the world's largest glass producer at the time.
But at present, Britain could only settle for second place. Coupled with the economies of scale in the glass industry, the British even had to resort to tariff barriers to keep Austrian Empire glass from entering their market.
As for geniuses and artists, the Austrian Empire had no shortage of them.
Olga had seen many exquisite glass buildings, and in the Austrian Empire, boxy structures were generally found only in agricultural laboratories on school campuses. That was why she called the Crystal Palace a greenhouse shed.
Olga also realized that she had misspoken.
"Sorry, this truly is an exquisite greenhouse. Is this an agricultural exposition? It's wonderful!"
Prince Albert's face turned green, then red. He had even begun to suspect that Franz and Olga had done it on purpose.
In truth, Franz and Olga accepting the invitation and attending the exposition in London had already been a highly unlikely event. But why had Prince Albert come in person?
It certainly could not have been a sudden whim, nor could he have come merely to