I'm looking for a building

Jan 12, 2008 10 Replies

Hi. I'm a student of architecture. Long time ago, I've heard about this building, I think it's in Boston, but I'm not sure if it's even in the USA. One of it's parts has a round shape, the walls (or maybe it could be a dome) are painted (maybe it was stained glass) in this way that there is created a political map of world from the 30' of XX century (exatly year 1935 but I'm not sure). This map is viewed from the inside. The effect is like you're looking on a big model of earth's globe, but from the inside of it. Thanks for help :)



Monika, Poland


Hello, Monika from Poland. The globe you are referring to is at the Christian Science Center in Boston and is called the Mapparium. It is an amazingly cool structure. The acoustics are unbelievable. When you Google for info, make sure you check out the acoustics workup of the Mapparium.

R

What fun. The inside-out thing is a bit of a mind-bender though, except for someone used to the point of view of being the center of the world I guess. A bit of the Cenotaph for Newton about it, don't you think?

It has been recently upgraded. I have not seen it since, but assume that it is basically the same.

You mean the maps, or something else?

The whole building including IIRC the maps.

I visited in while I was in college...errr...when I was supposed to be in college - I blew off classes that day as it was a nice spring day - and the acoustics are downright spooky. I'd heard nothing about the place and just popped in for a visit. There were only a couple of us in there at the time, and I remember being astounded that the other person was saying _exactly_ what I was thinking...until I realized a split second later that I was the one doing the talking. The sounds emanate from weird locations and at times just appear inside your head with no apparent source. Great fun.

R

It's and old dream of mine to work with some spherical space acoustics for music practice space. I recently had an opportunity to visit a townhouse I designed in the 80's. I remembered that I had worked in a partial sphere into a circulation figure, and when straight for it to do a little tap routine. The owner was surprised I still remembered that I'd done it, and everyone in the family was aware of it but unsure if it was intentional.

RicodJour wrote in news:6c1d0a43-d2b8-4712-9393- snipped-for-privacy@e25g2000prg.googlegroups.com:

You certainly do know some relatively obscure but interesting stuff ;)

"Michael Bulatovich" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news3.newsguy.com:

Do you have any pics or diagrams? I can't picture it from the description, but it sounds interesting.

Google their website.

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