5 Cool Globes

By Peter Jon Lindberg
September 15, 2011
Credit: Courtesy of François Abelanet
Take the planet for a spin: these five incarnations—some timely, some timeless—underscore the power, grace, and enduring appeal of the globe.
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Mapparium

Credit: Courtesy of The Mary Baker Eddy Library

In the unlikely setting of Boston’s Mary Baker Eddy Library, visitors can walk inside a (thoroughly secular) three-story-high marvel fashioned out of steel and stained glass in 1935.

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Great Gottorp Globe

Credit: ITAR-TASS Photo Agency / Alamy

Originally completed in 1664, the 10-foot-diameter German contraption has a hollow interior, painted with constellations, that you can enter. The design inspired the modern planetarium. It’s now on display at the Kunstkamera museum, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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Crystal Marquise

Credit: Courtesy of Replogle

This elegant, 12-inch desktop model—fully transparent and skewered like a cocktail onion—was created by a renowned Illinois globe maker. $140; replogleglobes.com

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Exosphere

Credit: Courtesy of Ino Gunther

One of the largest hanging globes on earth—nearly 40 feet in diameter—hovers inside Volkswagen’s Autostadt complex, in Wolfsburg, Germany.

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Qui Croire?

Credit: Courtesy of François Abelanet

The world is flat: Viewed from a certain angle, “land artist” François Abélanet’s ingenious trompe-l’oeil installation (recently in Paris) seems to take the shape of a sphere. His works, always temporary, are meant to play with the environment without disrupting it.

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