Vintage New England - Mapparium, Boston Mass.

Antique postcard
Chrome Era, 1960's

The Mapparium is the main exhibit at Boston's Mary Baker Eddy Library. It is a three-story, inverted globe consisting of 608 stained-glass panels.
Visitors walk through the globe via a thirty-foot glass bridge from which they can stand in the middle of the world.

Standing in the center of the bridge, a person can see the entire globe with none of the distortions most maps cause.
 
The Mapparium's other notable features were actually completely unintentional: its spherical shape and glass construction create multiple unique acoustic effects. Standing in the center of the globe, directly under the North Star, one can hear their voice in surround sound, as though they were speaking into their own ears. At either end of the bridge, visitors can also whisper from one doorway and be heard perfectly from the opposite side, 30 feet away, in a "whispering gallery" effect.

Since the Mapparium was built in 1935, none of the panels have been updated, although one was replaced after being damaged. Visitors to the Mapparium may notice such historic differences as Africa depicted as a patchwork of colonies and the USSR united as one nation. In 2002, LED lights were installed around the globe and, together with an original composition of words and music, highlight these and other major changes since its creation in 1935.

 

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