May 15, 2010: Mapparium

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Mapparium is a thirty foot diameter stained glass globe, you view from the inside. It was installed at the Boston headquarters of the Christian Science Publishing Society, in 1935. It's bisected in the middle by a glass walkway, which is the only place on earth, you can see the world in it's proper perspective.

It is fascinating to view the earth this way for the first time. Africa is huge. North America, Europe, and Asia are all jammed up against the North Pole. You have to look nearly straight up to see them. Sizes and locations of continents and countries you’ve always taken for granted are suddenly unfamiliar.

Unfortunately, although it shows the land masses perfectly, for countries you're out of luck.

While the relative size and position of the continents are correct, the map's political boundaries are long out of date. The Mapparium hasn’t changed since 1935. It's still possible to find Siam and French Indochina, but not Israel or Indonesia. The USSR looms large. Africa remains a large block of European colonies.

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