The Epic of the Dome: A Sky upon the Earth

The dome is read as one of humanity's oldest attempts to create an interior sky, beginning with the circle, geometry and the problem of setting a round dome on a square room. The Pantheon and its open eye lead to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, where gravity seemed to disappear, then to the Dome of the Rock, Sinan's Süleymaniye and Selimiye mosques, the Blue Mosque and Istanbul as a city of domes. Brunelleschi's dome in Florence, St Peter's, the painted domes of the Baroque, the Taj Mahal, Persian domes and muqarnas follow, with chapters on light, sound, the whisper beneath a dome and the equality of those who pray under it. Civic domes such as the United States Capitol, libraries, baths and markets lead to the concrete shells of Nervi and Candela, artificial intelligence and the blue that so often colours a dome.