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Sunday, January 11, 2015

Mapparium @ Christian Science Center

Located in the Christian Science Center’s Mary Baker Eddy Library is an amazing 3 story tall glass globe. Inspired by architect Chester Lindsay Churchill to represent the Christian Science Monitor’s global awareness and reach he constructed this 30-foot diameter glass globe based on the Rand McNally Political map of the time.

It is frozen in time in 1935 when Thailand was known as Siam and much of Africa was under colonial rule. The globe is made of 608 stained glass panels and was designed to allow the countries to be viewed in accurate geographical relationship to each other.

Guests of the Mapparium are grouped together in small batches and taken into the mapparium for a 20 minute long stay where they enjoy a light and sound show. Guests walk across a glass bridge suspended in the middle of the globe where it’s unusual acoustics allow visitors voices to be amplified.

They do not allow pictures from within the globe since the map is copyrighted by Rand McNally but I couldn’t resist sneaking a few for my blog. It’s a great location to visit and see what the world looked like in 1935.



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