Star Theatre: The Story of the Planetarium

230 Pages·2017·21.78 MB·English

by  William Firebrace

S T A R T H EA T R E

S T A R T H EA T R E
The Story of the Planetarium
William Firebrace
reaktion books
Published by Reaktion Books Ltd
Unit 32, Waterside
44–48 Wharf Road
London n1 7ux, uk
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2017
Copyright © William Firebrace 2017
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publishers
Printed and bound in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn 978 1 78023 835 7
CONTENTS
MISSING PLANET 7
1 HOLY, ROUGH, IMMEDIATE 11
2 PLANETARY PROJECTION 51
3 RED STAR, WHITE STAR 87
4 OUTER PATHS 125
5 VISIBLE, INVISIBLE 173
Timeline of selecTed PlAneTariums 209
PrinciPAl PlaneTAriums of
archiTecTural inTeresT 213
furTher reAding 217
AcknowledgemenTs 221
PhoTo AcknowledgemenTs 223
index 225

MISSING PLANET
A diminutive planet, mounted on a slender pole, hovers above the
London Planetarium. This planet is whitish in colour, about 1 metre
in diameter, and encircled by a flat, white disc, representing a ring
of cosmic dust. The planetarium closed some years ago, under
never quite explained circumstances, and now functions merely
as a 3d cinema attached to the neighbouring Madame Tussauds
waxworks museum. At night, however, up in the sky, the little
planet still glows softly with a yellowish light, quietly ignoring the
hubbub of traffic on the road below.
I used to work in an office with a window facing the London
Planetarium, and found this planet rather reassuring, a sign that all
was well in the solar system. So when the planet suddenly vanished,
sometime during the summer of 2012, I was gripped by feelings of
worry and anxiety. Planets are meant to be reasonably constant in
their elliptical paths around the Sun, a reassuring celestial register
of the stability of the solar system as a whole, including our own
circulating planet.
The case of the missing planet. Sherlock Holmes, consulting
detective resident in nearby 221b Baker Street, would perhaps
have been intrigued. His nemesis, Professor James Moriarty, the
‘Napoleon of crime’, was well known for his volume The Dynamics London Planetarium
with its planet-
of an Asteroid, which coincidentally explored a missing planet topped dome.
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stAr theAtre
located somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. A case in a detective
story often starts with a simple clue – a disappearance or unex-
pected event – but leads to a mass of individual, entangled threads,
sometimes without any obvious means of resolution. Usually the
original clue becomes irrelevant as more complex matters evolve.
The disappearance of the small planet was a sign of some
greater absence, suggesting certain questions, about not just the
London Planetarium but planetariums in general. Planetariums
are part of most people’s childhood experience, usually dimly
remembered from a school visit and recalled by adults paying
a return visit with their own children. These questions begin as
simple wondering, and rapidly become more complex. How and
where did the planetarium originate? What kind of simulation of
the solar system and the universe does the planetarium produce?
How does the planetarium mix theatre with science? How has the
planetarium changed with developments in astronomy? What is
the relationship between the exterior and interior of the building?
In this book, these and other themes will be investigated over
five approximately chronological sections: the precedents for the
planetarium; its invention in Germany in the 1920s; developments
in the ussr and the u.s. in the 1930s; the expansion across the globe
in the later twentieth century, at the time of the space race; and
finally, the evolution of the contemporary planetarium in our own
period of startling astronomical and cosmological discovery. But the
planetarium does not simply follow a line in time: it slips back and
forth, approaching and receding, like some errant celestial body.
The London Planetarium planet reappeared on the roof of the
dome in December 2012, returning as unexpectedly as it vanished.
A group of building workers crawled up the ladder on the side
of the dome, passing between them with considerable effort the
globe, which they reattached to the pole on the dome. This pole has
an ingenious mechanism allowing it to be lowered to a horizontal
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missing planet
position, making the task easier. Some days later the planet was
once again glowing, restoring a sense of reliability and comfort.
According to the owners of Madame Tussauds, the planet had
been ‘undergoing standard maintenance’. Cosmic harmony has
been restored – at least for now. The links between astronomy
and architecture continue to evolve in unexpected ways within
the star theatre.
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