American Scientist

Some of the grandest and most awe-inspiring interior spaces are topped by domes, those structural tours de force that surmount great buildings and make them greater. Today, the word dome seems most easily to evoke images of enclosed sports stadiums, including Houston’s pioneering Astrodome and New Orleans’s Superdome, in which victims of tragic Hurricane Katrina sought refuge. Historically, however, domes have been associated not with recreational sites but with sacred places such as churches, cathedrals and basilicas, and with government landmarks such as state and national capitols. But regardless of the nature of the space beneath them, domes invariably draw the eye and mind up in wonderment at their architectural expansiveness.