Visionary Architecture Week at the Kircher Society
All this week, the Athanasius Kircher Society will be saluting visionary constructions, imaginary and real.
To start things off, Father Kircher’s illustration of the Tower of Babel:
And Kircher’s explanation of why the Tower of Babel could not have possibly reached the moon. From the Museum of Jurassic Technology:
This model illustrates Kircher’s proof that Nimrod’s ambition was intrinsically flawed: in order to reach the nearest heavenly body; the Moon, the tower would have to be 178,672 miles high, comprised of over three million tons of matter. The uneven distribution of the Earth’s mass would tip the balance of the planet and move it from its position at the center of the universe, resulting in a cataclysmic disruption in the order of nature.
April 8th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
[...] Em março passado houve uma semana dedicada à arquitetura visionária. Um dos artigos fala de Jean-Jacques Lequeu: Jean-Janques Lequeu, the turn-of-the-nineteenth-century French architect of fanciful yet preposterously implausible (and unrealized) buildings, is a hero of the Athanasius Kircher Society. [...]
May 6th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
We should build a building to the Moon!
/And none of this stupid carbon nanotube elevator crap! A real BUILDING. If we start now, we can have it done before the Rapture!
February 5th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Well it says the “nearest heavenly body” and we assume it is the moon.
June 10th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Very good website you have here, After the visit I put my step in to your guestbook.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Yeah, I’m thinking the nearest heavenly body is that gal who played the invisible girl in the Fantastic Four…
I could erect an edifice to her in no time flat.
(ba-dum-dum)
July 31st, 2007 at 1:35 pm
[...] [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 1:43 pm
[...] (From The Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society) [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 10:38 am
hey babe