A project that failed to please Napoleon III was Hittorff's proposal for the "palais de l'Industrie" to be constructed in 1853 to house the Exposition Universelle of 1855. On 27 March 1852, the "Prince-Président"— soon to declare himself Emperor— decreed this exhibition take place in a hall to rival the Crystal Palace of the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. Hittorff's solution, an immense hall of iron and glass, was too audacious, and the commission passed to other architects, and a conservative compromise was effected.