#neoclassicalism

The amazing, and beautiful, proposed cenotaph for Isaac Newton by Etienne-Louis Boullée. Envisioned to be taller than the Great Pyramids of Giza at 500 feet tall! The excerpt below describes my favorite feature of the design. The inclusion of a system that would illuminate the interior to replicate night and day.

Boullée creates an interior world that inverts exterior lighting conditions. At night, light radiates from an oversize luminaire suspended at the center point of the sphere. Vaguely celestial in form, its light spills through the long the entry tunnels. During the day, a black starlit night blankets the interior. Points of light penetrate the thick shell through narrow punctures whose arrangement corresponds with locations of planets and constellations. A seemingly inaccessible corridor with a quarter-circle section rings the perimeter.

The Surprise 

Caroline Riviere