Hi, hope you liked the video! If you want to see some of Boullées projects in 3D and get a better sense of what they would have looked like in real life, you can find some great digital reconstructions of them here: https://youtu.be/04cpR_SHQ94

Excellent video, thank you.

These videos are amazing! The incredible beauty and grandiose scale of Boullee is astounding and awe-inspiring. Mixed with your narration, these videos have a sense of calm wonderment. You should do more videos of classical architecture. My favorite is Baroque.

The dude created something more depressing/opression than brutalism before the concept of an totalitarian state was even an idea XD true genius XD I find it interesting that the philosophical basis is the ore before an superhuman transcedencial being.

Consider using a gentle de-esser on your audio :) fantastic video!

Albert Speer was a big fan.

An architect's dream is an engineer's nightmare

an engineer's dream is a woman's nightmare

@marvin19966 What does that even mean?

​@Rory Connolly a means dream is a modes nightmare

@Rory Connolly exactly what it says

Im just thinking of the poor construction workers making these stunning, but useless Buildings lmao.

His architecture is like Ancient Rome meets HP Lovecraft. Absolutely spectacular.

Too euclidian to be Lovecraft

But is it cyclopean? Or pre-cambrian slate?

@Negative eh it still fits lovecraft later admitted he didnt quite understand what euclidian ment, he simply used it to describe "shapes that which could never be described" .

@Hugo Desrosiers-Plaisance That’s such a fantastically succinct way of describing it. I adore Lovecraftian Horror, but I hate running into the same overused aesthetic trope of “giant, slimy tentacle monsters.” I feel that art like Boullée’s, similar to Blame! and NaissanceE, does a better job capturing the spirit of the genre.

That could also describe Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

"They were impossible to build. This inspires architects to this day." That tracks.

And engineers be busting their heads on how to make it work😆😆😆

Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for ?

Side note: Heaven is literally just the safe zone of humanity after dealing with the devil's very, _very_ constant advances for their entire lives.

So inspired look at their modern brutalist buildings in todays world Edit: am being sarcastic.

​@Daniel Awesome the most soy way to describe heaven.

You are literally the only channel that manages to cover all of my weird niche interests! Thank you so much, I couldn't find many good quality videos covering Boullée’s work, which is crazy as you'd assume his grandiose visions would feature very often in architectural discussions.

The architecture side of youtube or even architectural theory is a bit too focused on recent works and historical (often of higher quality) works get left behind.

This is so true; the same for me

An amazing channel that peeks in the subject if architecture is alt236 unfortunately it is in french but there are english subtitles. I highly recommend this channel. Its general subject is dark imagination but the quality of the videos is insane.

Yea me too! I guess we're bunch of historical weirdos now lol

@Concerned Shrimp Woohoo Youtube pals!🤣

The scale of these buildings is incredible. I don't know if Boulée intended this or not, but they look very imposing - the individual becomes almost insignificant. This reminds me of the designs Albert Speer created for Hitler's megalomanical building projects (like the "World Capital Germania" Berlin was meant to become). I don't know if Speer knew of Boulée's work, but there are are some uncanny similarities between their designs (for example, the "German Stadium" at the (Nazi) Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg is similar to Boulée's Colosseum). Interesting and also macabre how two diametral approaches can lead to very similar results.

100% intentional. during the time period architects were really into the concept of the sublime, which is pretty much exactly what you described. "imposing, the individual becomes almost insignificant". the goal of the architecture is to present a feeling of terror and awe much in the same way that a giant mountain would or a rainstorm or a crumbling building covered in moss and rubble

Exactly, architecture as intimidation and to subdue the individual. All power to the state! 😖

it was, and is, a common trend in architecture. as lunammoon said, to call on the sublime or absoluteness of a concept in a frank and wholistic manner. not trying to skirt away from the ultimate purpose and profundity of lofty things like justice or rule or death or knowledge. kind of gives me platonic notes of calling upon perfect forms.

@Space Lemur well, I guess thats all about how you want to frame it. I mean, a lot of Boulée's architecture was LITERALLY intended to support and facilitate the dignity of the indivigual and revolutionary french republican virtues, again with things like awarding farmers for their hard work and stuff in bold, unapologetic magnitude. all of course in reference to the larger public nature of things as well. but like I mentioned, its about what lense you take of it.

All of his buildings are stunning. I would love to see them built even if at a much smaller scale.

You could buy some Lego? 😄

@Chris Cohen NO I want them big enough 50 people can comfortably walk in the front door.

@Auriorium So a lot of Legos.

@Oryx Yes

I think Kentaro Miura might have been inspired by Boullees art. I remember seeing these sort of massive buildings during the Falconia arc of Berserk.

Definitely

I knew there was something about how spectacular those drawings looked in the manga but I just couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was

Bro I was thinking just that

was just thinking the same thing. reminds me of how he was inspired by mc escher when the god hand was first introduced

I wouldn't be surprised, he also referenced hieronymus bosch!

I've always been really impressed by Boullée's imagination and designs. Thank you very much for laying them out to us so clearly.

Boullee’s designs are awe inspiring and stretch limits of the imagination. They truly elevate the human soul. Where can one find a collection of Boullee’s work oniline?

There is something about this period from 1700 to pre industrialisation (around 1840) that seems to have inspired the most majestic and awe inspiring works of of art since the times of antiquity. From the music of Vivaldi, Bach, and later Mozart and Beethoven to architecture like this.

The Enlightment

Cheap and (slave) labor and industrialization made it a lot easier. Edit: with slavelabour and cheap labour i meant the extraction and production of resources needed for such constructions, not the actual building itself.

@Big Body Biggolo 9301 how exactly was slave labour used to build 18th century Parisian architecture?

@Ahwaban Mukherjee because just like the US slavery/forced labour was an acceptable practice until well into the 19th century

​@Big Body Biggolo 9301 No slaves were allowed in metropolitan France so definitely not the same as in the USA. Also i think you are mixing the 18th and 19th centuries. At Boulées time it wasn't that good, obviously, since the French Revolution happened some 20 years before his death but it was nowhere near the exploitation of the unprotected very cheap workers of the industrial revolution.

What would be awesome is if a digital artist turned these designs into full scale virtual reality simulations people could tour in cyberspace using VR glasses.

Start harassing your local VR programmers now. That idea is worth a fortune

go build it in minecraft

I would like to have a video game set in a world of such architecture. Some kind of ancient steampunk fantasy world.

@Konstantin Rebrov Dark Souls games have mega structures, whether its a castle, mountain range in the distance, cliffs dropping 1000ft down, its all exaggerated to the extremes.

@Job Dylan tell me how youre gonna represent round cannon balls or the cannons in minecraft without using a 9:1 scale. and even then youd reach the world hight with less than 10% of the vertical structure. VR is a much better way to go about it. plus with AI you could import the drawings to give you a skelton to mold around. use the image scaler from google earth to render resolution at distance so its not fully rendered at any given time (too hardware intensive) while still preserving the massive scale. alternatively you could use blockchain tech to create an imutable database holding the info, shared by the people visiting the "server" to crowd source the render.

Imagine a mind like this working not only on architecture on Earth, but potential extraterrestrial architecture for humanity.

Well it’s easy to create large grand structures when all you’re concerned is with the message you want to make to make about size and power. As opposed to being concerned with logistics, or god forbid just general usability and livability of such a structure lol

@Tanner Good point. Still fascinating from an aesthetic point of view though imo.

@Tanner there's no reason we can't reconcile the two.

@The Gercast of course not, and my mistake if I came across as implying that was so. I think there’s plenty of good existing examples of architecture that is both practical and awe inspiring. But that’s not what this architect seemed to be concerned with

@Tanner yeah.

as an artist: I am at awe at his works, just makes me feel bad it doesn't exist irl im am glad nature gifted us the strength of deep imagination

Im thinking it's probably a good thing the untransversable megastructures designed to glorify the power of the state only exists in art and aren't actually how people are supposed to live

@counterfeit nah if I was a city planner/architect I'd pretty much just make gothic Netherlands

God gifted us, not nature

@IIIIII I know you think you're being helpful but you're really not

Some related things: -Baths of Diocletian (epic in scale and actually existed) -Tower of Babel series by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (and indeed the Tower was a subject also for contemporaries of Etienne-Louis Boulee, who tended to enjoy portraying the tower in precise and dizzying depictions) -The works of the romantic painter John Martin, who painted buildings of similar scale and detail

And - The Architect's Dream by Thomas Cole - Dune 2021 movie architecture

Diocletian's baths and Croatian palace still exist. They're not in their original state, but they're both more or less intact.

John Martin is a wonderful artist even though he depicts the scenery in his works in an „end of the world“ scheme rather than a perfect, absolute society

And: -Giovanni Bautista Piranesi and his Imaginary Prisons series.

It’s 4am and I’m crying because a French guy made some really big and really pretty buildings.

There’s worse reasons to cry at 4 A.M. Hope this was a good share and not a cry for help.

So dramatic

W berserk pfp

Get a grip of your knickers Doris

you need professional help i presume

Boullee: Says he has an immense amount of admiration for Sir Isaac Newton Also Boullee: Designs buildings that would stand in utter contempt of gravity if they were to ever come close to existing

I been in some of the worlds biggest churches and as a man of atheism, the sheer size and beauty of these colossal buildings that took hundreds of years to build, leaves a tremendous emotional effect on you. It can easily be understood why people turned to religion upon entering a grand cathedral, there was no question in my mind that this place was holy and respect was to be established.

I had this exact experience on a train passing Arundel. I saw the cathedral and castle on the horizon and the cathedral especially looked colossal in the otherwise empty countryside. Almost like it was some kind of dragon like creature off in the distance.

I have huge respect for the designers, builders and owners of these colossal antique buildings

I agree, but I also find the entire enterprise manipulative. Which it is, of course, but I mean it evokes not the wonder of gods, but suspicion in the authorities who seek to bamboozle and cow the people. Such structures, ultimately, are more about earthly power than divine power to the states and organizations that maintain them. They glorify the state even more than god

Big building = god

I wish at least one of these designs ended up being built. I'm always fascinated by the concept of inconceivably massive structures that aren't just "skyscraper but more taller"

Boullee's building are now one of my absolute favourites, I think. They inspire in me some eerie feeling. I would love to walk around in them, I really would, but they feel... scary. antiutopian. otherwordly. They look unreal, and thus make me thinks of being outside of the human realm. I imagine these building as achitechture in fae world in Celtic religion, or something similar. It's truly remarkable...

Why antiutopian? They look pretty utopian to me.

Lovecraftian.

They are too big for simple humans. It looks like greek gods and giants would walk between them.

Your words mean nothing. Have you just heard of this guy? And now you believe he’s your favorite upon watching a random 19 minute YouTube video. It’s almost like you have no experience at all with the architectural medium. Stop trying to act cool and go cultivate yourself so that you’ll have something unique to offer the world. Until then just shut up. Loser.

Bro fr just did sth there 💀

This reminds me of dune, the author describes huge constructs and cities stretching for kilometers with walls scraping the sky and buildings adorned with windows longer than semi trucks

I have never read the books but it's time I did. The movie is visually amazing.

This video is such a delight. Thank you!! I love the grand scope and gravity of Boullée’s work, akin in architecture to what John Martin is in painting.

His art really reminds me of those megastructures intended for space that we usually see in sci-fi. It's interesting because it really does look like just that, but it's less advanced. Reminds me of the SandalPunk punk aesthetic since it looks like the ancient times met new technologies that advanced them into a new era.

In a way, it feels like Etienne-Louis Boullee was way ahead of his time. His mode of thinking was not whether something was financially viable to design, so much as whether or not it could be designed. And his designs with the trees and the use of spheres and rings is just something that I really appreciate. I think that Boullee would have been right at home on the concept art team for films like Tomorrowland, or on the design team for places like Marina Bay in Singapore.

Newton totally deserves such a Cenotaph. There a few human being we owe so much to. Plus the building would be a marvel in itself.

He's a master, but I can't help but feel many of his designs feel depressingly dystopic. The "repulsive beauty" of the erupting volcano is intense.

That's my overall impression of his work, too.

The fact that these were created in the 1700s and not the 1920s is just mind blowing. It would be like discovering that Rembrandt beat Geiger to the punch. I can't help but see the parallels in Speer's work. Megalithic Brutalism, 250 years early.

i LOVE not just architecture, but anything that is enormous in scale. seeing the scale of these structures, they definitely achieve their goals of being awe-inspiring.

man, the cenotaph for Isaac Newton is absolutely amazing. The idea of inverting day and night time inside the sphere is genius....

Anyone else realize how perfect the music to go with this video is? It's every type of classical I like

Didn’t know I needed this until now. This dude is now my favorite architect. Excellent video! Where did you find the pictures in such high quality?

Favorite architect? I guess it's just a matter of taste, but have you seen Antoni Gaudí?

@S6brapoiss_Tupsu just looked him up and yeah he designed some pretty darn cool stuff as well. The church of the sagrada família is something else!

I would also like to know this, I can't find anything HD.

The perfect example of "I wanted to be an artist, had to learn architecrure, so am doing art in architecture now."

This architectural style is absolutely marvelous. It seems like a combination of ancient, but also futuristic at the same time. As if ancient civilizations lasted to the modern day, this is the kind of architecture that they would be building. I call it ancientpunk. Although these buildings were not impossible to build technically, but they were beyond the limits of abilities of Europe at that time, and probably they are beyond the limits of modern time too. It would have been wonderful if this man could have manifested matter using his mind. If he had some kind of powers to make the buildings just appear out of thin air like that.

I think for me what really sells the scale is the nested structures. In one of these images, he shows a massive city, with an incomprehensibly large wall, each corner with a 400ft tall tower, each tower topped with an arena larger than the Roman Colosseum. At first glance it's big, but it has the unique quality that the closer you look, the more terrifyingly enormous you realize it all is. As others have asked, where did you find all this information and these high quality images?

Those buildings gives me the dystopian, tyrannical feel, like the one in 1984 where there's a large pyramid in the middle of the city that represents the government/ministry.

These drawings do a great job capturing the impossible and otherworldly scale of these designs

Absolutely mesmerizing. Thank you so much for sharing such an interesting set of works. It’s always a little humbling to remember that people have always been dreaming of large impossible things. That no matter how much time has passed our imaginations are endless ❤

The drawings are beautiful works of art, and the vastness of them is incredible! Reminds me of the buildings from Star Wars prequels

Étienne's palace designs greatly remind me of the finnish parliament house, i wonder if the architect was taking inspiration from him.

Your channel is one of my all-time favourites. I can't fathom why you're not more popular, but I trust that you'll eventually find the engagement you merit.

You should also make a video on Antonio Sant'Elia another architect who despite never getting anything built in his lifetime left behind lots of drawings & blueprints that have been very inspirational

This man's vision really looks like the architecture of a classical, grand society. One where all is well and conflicts don't tell. Where's the entirety of its society is one who loves peace, science, and art. They might be technologically less advanced, but they're culturally way more as advanced. It's truly something that looks like it belongs on a planet on a game like Destiny 2.

With that type of architecture and the engineering required, they would have to be technologically quite developed.

Thank you so much for this video. I've always had a fascination with Boullée, and to see this greatly put together video was great. I only wish some of these monuments were built! Can't wait to see what's coming up.

I love things that involve taking regular things and amping them up to the hypothetical and impossible. It always gives me such a sense of wonder and awe and the strong desire to make them possible.

For those interested there is also Claude-Nicolas Ledoux in the same neoclassical style. I visited one of his creations (the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans) and it was very impressive, even though not as monumental as some of the building they had imagined on paper

In all his designs, he had eternity in view.

I'm new to this channel and subject. I'm fascinated. These designs are mesmerising and so immense. I can only imagine what they may have looked like if they were brought into reality. What an informative and brilliant video. I'm glad I clicked on it. 😌😁

Boullée was truly a great architect, but profoundly affected by his historicity. The execution goes places the theory never could, but not every movement in the superstructure can be as timely as cubism or brutalism. Great video!

I don't think they were "impossible to build" but definitely overly ambitious for sure. Would have been nice to see one of these goliaths built.

this is excellent! A lot of these designs really make me think of platonic perfect forms and theoretical plain geometries and mathmatics like calculus. almost like the architect is showing mans ability to peal back reality and call upon its core essence and understand in its basic geometric shapes. a bold minimalism.

Thank you for covering my favorite exterior architect! Percier and fontaine will forever be the greatest interior designers and I’d love to see a video on them.

Another excellent video from Kings and Things. The mix of powerful images, excellent script and quality narration made this wonderful to watch. It took me back to the first time I saw the work of Boullée when I was an architecture student in the 70s.

This is such a good video and I love the classical music you put in the background. I wanted to thank you for teaching me about a man who is both an amazing architect and artist, in such a well made video.

Excellent video. I feel ashamed to have never heard of his work, but I really appreciate you putting such a comprehensive and compelling video together, thank you.

I can't tell you how happy I am for this video. I have literally been hoping you guys would make it. Thanks a lot G.

Someone should create a video game set in a world with such architecture. Some kind of ancient steampunk fantasy world. I would totally play it for the sheer joy of exploring the city and marveling at the architecture.

Large structures like these make for very tedious travel in games, unless you set the whole game in one of them

@Lucy FerosConsidering how huge these are, it’s a possibility.

I love this cause his drawing resemble ancient structures like those that we cannot create today e.g pyramids, Mayan, Inca, Aztecs. For both technological and societal reasons have changed architecture to a strict utilitarian, rather than communal or observational areas

As an amateur architect artist, I hope that the recognition of these types of really cool designs are not overlooked. Most people like people more than buildings. It really is hard.

Loved the video. Boullée's works inspire a moments of awe that i've only ever experienced in places like the phili train station. His work's also remind me of Wes Anderson. But yeah, this is one of the best videos i've seen recently.

just watching this already induces in me a state of admiration. If I could actually see these constructions in real life, I don't even know how I'd react. It's fantastic!!!

quite amazing , the colossal designs are impressive and would have been some sight to behold , i feel as if they should be made just because we can. I think the Newton cenotaph is the coolest although odd that no apple trees were in the designs. I'd love to see some of these made in the future , also some of Antonio Sant'Elia designs , thanks a new architect for me to admire.

His architecture immediately made me recall the drawings of Germania presented to Hitler by Albert Speer. I would not be surprised to learn that Speer was heavily inspired by Boullée.

Yes I thought the same... It's all very.... Nope I'm not going to say it. They are buildings designed to manipulate our emotions, from the classical via gothic to modernism, from religious to political to secular. They do it well

his work is so beautiful. I like to imagine what it would be like to stand in front of one of such creations. I have always admired grand architectural projects. Mostly huge skyscrapers.

This is amazing! They're so grand and majestic. The man definitely had a hell of a vision. Glad I decided to check out this video. Great work!

A very interesting presentation. I wonder what Boullée would think of the colossal buildings of science fiction (the mega-blocks featured in _Dredd_ and _Blade Runner's_ Tyrell Corporation headquarters.

This video had me riveted from start to finish. What an incredible story is Boullée’s.

I adore leviathan structures of this scale, I hope one day the world has more structures like these in classical styles, and not in minimalist styles

Agreed. Honestly, I would be happy to pay a little more in taxes if we built these things. The world needs more awe inspiring monuments.

Watch some videos on these topics mainly buildings on channels like "My Lunch Break" & Jarid Boosters.

The fact that none of these unbelievable projects got off the ground is a shame. But considering Boulleè’s designs live on as art and that he always wanted to be an artist, I can’t help but find that reassuring and slightly ironic.

This is so well curated and explained. Thank you so much for gifting us this video. ❤

Oh. That’s awesome. It reminds me of architecture that struck me in certain works of fiction. The Time Tombs and other megastructures from The Hyperion Cantos. Hueco Mundo from Bleach. BLAME! and Knights of Sidonia had some structures scaled like this, and bigger. (That guys a genius of architecture drawing.) Olympus Mons or The Imperial Palace from 40k. (Or just Olympus itself I guess.) There are others I’m sure. It’s got to be so large you can’t have seen anything like it, but so detailed that you can be the creature standing in the shadow of its lowest steps. I hear the Pyramids are actually like this a little. Sky Scrapers get closer, but those are constrained by material, and our still comparatively small purposes. I like it.

Etienne-Louis Boullee and Hugh Ferris are my favorite architects just for how awe inspiring their senses of scale are.

I'm a big fan of his work. Thank you for making this!

"The architecture of shadows" and Newton's monument were so inspiring. I've could never even consider to be told something by a building design, but now I understad why architeture is also considered an artistic expression. I would like to live in a world, were we still thinking our cities' infrestructure represents human values and not just its economics and practicality. This is just a prove humanity has lost a lot of human values...

I've said it before, and I am saying it again. Your channel deserves way more subs. Feels like I am learning history in a comfy chair.

This is fascinating, and very well written. Thank you!

This is beautiful, his work was like futurism

Merci pour ce bel hommage rendu à un grand architecte. Étienne-Louis Boullée a su associer le classicisme à la Française à la plus extraordinaire modernité…

Thanks very much for your dedication! And specially for leaving the resources down below, it's priceless to be able to read and consolidate the information with additional readings and also not having to spend time finding them by ourself.

I just found my favorite Architect, his works resonate strongly with me and my heart and soul. Thank you for making this possible!

The Engineers: “So how big were you thinking for this monument?” Étienne: “Yes”

Magnificent is the only word that comes to mind! You can't help but stare at those illustrations in total wonder... What a sight it would be if you could see those buildings in person!

As much as it would grand to see one of these buildings in real life, I know that just by being at the main entrance, it would put me in an existential breakdown.

Your architecture videos are the best. You should make more of them

You can see where Giger might have gotten the inspiration for a few of his more architectural works, his Shaft series and- among others- the Harkonnen buildings on Giedi Prime from his concept work for Dune.

Thank you for this video! It's incredible what architectural ideas have been conceived SO EARLY!! In my personal opinion, i don't like these absurdly large buildings that are essentially just architects wet dreams, but are anything but practical for normal use/everyday life. I don't care if this dome has the perfect mathematical propositions, or if these giant flat walls symbolize something significant. If it's just huge for the sake of being huge and lets the individual disappear into insignificance, i always feel a strong sense of defiance. It's nothing i would want to identity myself with, or even visit. They're cool in concept, thought provoking as drawn art pieces, but as real places they would be giant barren chunks of nothingness. I actually feel the same way about a lot of other/modern mega projects.

It actually reminds me a lot of Piranesi. I wonder what genre these fall into. Lovecraftian architecture, maybe?

One of my favorite architects/design theorists of all time. The design drawings are my of favorite part. The color tone is the lense you use to imagine history in. If the makes sense.

Truly amazing and sublime works, but all of them being unbuilt might be for the better. Just imagining the carbon costs of one of these projects is absolutely wild

I'd love to see some kind of series with his kind of architecture as the backdrop and with more focus towards ambience, music, and setting than dialogue.

wow, what an amazing video. i just came across this in my recs, but im so so glad i clicked. these creations are absolutely amazing, every single structure felt equally as emotional as the last. its amazing to me that one mind can create so many ideas. wow

It is worth noting that Boullée's architecture is radical -- at least insofar as imaginary architecture can be considered such -- not only for its scale and austerity, but also for its emphasis on voids. This reflects the profound post-Newtonian shift in the perception of space, and the universe, wherein the cosmos, now a cold vacuum, was no longer representable by the florid profusion of baroque design but rather by absences enclosed by stark geometric forms. This is one of those key details which helps to contextualize Boullée's work within a new paradigmatic climate.

This was great! I'm glad you took the time to produce this.

There seems to be a touch of "Art Nouveau " in these images. This guy was the Bowie of architecture.

One one hand, I'd love to see some of these built in smaller scale. On the other, being BIG BUILDINGS™was pretty much the point of these projects. Amazing video.

I can't remember the name of Hitler's architect (was it Speer?) even though I read a whole book about him. Anyhow, Hitler wanted magnificence and grand opulence in his buildings. I saw several of the drawings Speer did for him and it reminds me of Boullee.

Yes it was Speer from Hitler's delirium. The focus on size is so childish.

Would be interesting to know if Boullée and Piranesi met one time. Could be very likely or not? :D Thank you very much for your efforts. Great way of presenting. Calm speech, great music choice and nice graphics!

Y K What? Could you elaborate further?

Just imagine what this man could have done with Minecraft.

Love this. I have dreams with insane architecture in them. These buildings could be straight out of one of them.

This channel is such a gem, I absolutely love your content. Thanks.

Exceptional. Consider me subscribed. Clearly, the steroids that Boullèe's classically influenced architecture designs have consumed, are on steroids. One of my favourites I would love to have seen realised is the, Cenotaph for Isaac Newton. The audacious, yet elegant, scale, the sublime symbolism, the stark contrasts, the skewed perspectives, are all inspirational, even if it does it subliminally. The journey it forces you to take, starting with the tunnel, which is akin to a birth canal and/or crossing over into death, eventually leading to the inside of the sphere, effectively inverting the sphere. Inverting life. The star constellations in the dome would have been an amazing site to see. I believe the structure also strongly relates to the esoteric Hermetic teachings of the Kybalion. For example, the Second Principle of Correspondence states: "As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul." Many theological beliefs have adopted this phrase since, but you heard it first in the Kybalion. If you ask me, it fits perfectly into the structure, even down to the stars, which represents the universe, and you are the soul. At that point, you have gone from above to below, the tunnel leading to the inside, as within, so without. Finally, you are in the belly of death, reminding you of your soul, and above you is the universe, creation itself, represented in awesome scale, forcing you face the enormity of creation, as well as your inevitable destruction in death. Also, that no matter how tiny you are, you are still a part of it all, which makes you eternal and infinite in scale. Both tiny, yet not at the same time, which is described in the fourth principle (polarity) that basically says the ALL is everything, yet nothing at the same time. It both is and isn't. It's everywhere, yet nowhere. In essence, hot and cold are the same, it's merely a case of degrees of hot or cold. At what point does cold water become hot, and vice versa? All seven principles tie in together perfectly in this structure, when you know them as I do. Incredibly poignant, if you ask me. Anyway, I've babbled enough, and could easily type another wall of words describing my observations, but I don't want to over ingratiate myself. Peace. DD. ☮